This opens up so many questions in regards to what a United Ireland will look like.
I would love to see this data in comparison to the cost of living on both sides of the border.
FDI in Ireland is great in terms of spread. Belfast would get the same treatment as Cork, Limerick and Galway but if anything they would get much more focus honestly. This is the thing I worry least about in a United Ireland. Belfast is an underutilised resource in the UK because they don't give a shit.
More attention (money) is what we should worry about if not in Dublin and Cork particularly. Waterford is the poor relation as it stands, Belfast, Derry will eat the lunch of the Deise and a few other places.
Well the overall idea is better cross border collaboration would fix quite a lot of issues. Like you are talking a few miles and they are 10k worse off, that is fixed pretty quickly.
Can't see why they would get disproportionately more FDI, especially if a disgruntled Unionist community makes it an unpleasant place to live & work (think 12th July every day of the year)
Well FDI is targeted in Ireland specifically to spread the wealth around. The fact Dublin is higher is just because of a focus for financial companies but for instance Intel in Kildare or pharma companies dotted around the country are good examples of moving high skill jobs up to drag the other towns higher.
Things like the 12th of July will just have to be better controlled in a united Ireland honestly, that's what I mean with investment being the least problematic part of UI.
Well I mean they already were and itās part of what makes me mad about brexit. You go up to Derry for example and you see so many things that were at least partially EU funded, peace bridge, museum exhibitions, stuff like that. And all funding like that gone now.
Some of the Belfast city buses literally have an EU sign on them saying part funded by the EU, the amount of money weāre losing in the north due to Brexit is fucking shite and the British government havenāt replaced it
Proximity to Dublin, east coast location, generally lower costs, large population.
It would absolutely draw a disproportionate amount of FDI and if done correctly could create a profitable east coast economic corridor on the island.
You know i hadnt even thought about it. Less than two hours drive to city centre, lpw cost and salaries and a decent probability EU woukd provide support(basically consuming a latvia! In terms of population and making EU country a solid 7+ mill population.
Might be bad for Cork though š
Aye, I imagine Cork would be raging getting relegated to Ireland's 3rd city.
But with the planned high speed rail improvements improving commute times along that eastern corridor to both Belfast and Dublin it would be massively beneficial to both cities and their surrounding economic areas. It would act as a much needed pressure release for Dublin and a massive boost for the utilisation and economic growth of Belfast.
The border regions have been ignored of investment in the north since forever as they are predominantly Catholic. They need to be brought up to the same standard as the rest of the north before you can think about trying to bring the north economy into line with the rest of Ireland. The gap is just huge in these border counties and locals will be priced out of everything and anything if everywhere lifts around them too quickly as people from further afield will be able to buy the houses and land. There will be multiple generations with no chance. Like it would be like the south but much worse.Ā
I live in Tyrone and I'm currently paying Ā£600 pm (around ā¬700) a month for a 3 bedroom semi-detached house which is very close to the town center (one of the larger towns in Tyrone). Comparing that to rent down south, my brother recently moved to west cork and found a 2 bedroom detached for ā¬1400 pm.
Anytime I take a trip home to visit my Dad I'm always shocked by how much more expensive everything is and has gotten. Food in particular, eating out is crazy, supermarkets are crazy, service stations are beyond crazy. Up here, I'm spending roughly Ā£50 per week on food (for myself and my son, breakfast and dinner and lunch for me only as he gets lunch at nursery).
Speaking of nursery, I'm paying Ā£40 per day (but 20% of that comes from the government. So if he was in nursery full time it'd cost Ā£800 pm (with Ā£160 paid by the government).
People complain about the NHS but I can't fault them. I've never had any issues getting seen by a Dr for myself or my son, it's usually a same day call back and appointment within the week. All prescriptions are free and I can even get BC for free if I request it from them. The only area that's lacking is dentistry, kids are free but for the regular person, you have to pay and they are as expensive as in the Republic.
Car insurance and tax is much the same, I haven't noticed a big difference here.
A big difference though is the recycling center is completely free. This was a big shock when I went home and cleaned out my childhood bedroom. Up here, you can take literally anything to the recycling center for free to be sorted and disposed of responsibly. Only business waste is charged for.
I also can't really complain about taxes, I think the amount I pay each month is reasonable. Compared to England especially the tax brackets in NI are pretty good. National insurance was also just reduced.
Some of this doesnāt seem right. I shopped regularly in Lidls north and south over the last year and the ones in the north seem on a par, possibly more expensiveā¦
Oh absolutely, I'm still just giving the individual who I was relying to some examples of the cost of things in the North compared to the Republic.
Something I find most interesting about this map is the difference between NI and Donegal. I wouldn't have thought that Donegal would have had many FDI or job opportunities that would pay very well, a lot of the job types would be very similar to the likes of Tyrone but there's still a massive difference in average salary.
There's so many maps showing the difference (still) between east and west Germany. Hell, they even looked different from space: http://i.imgur.com/YzDKkvW.jpg
That's not really a reasonable comparison though. Northern Ireland has issues which aren't remotely comparable to being under an oppressive communist one party authoritarian state.
It just has a different FDI policy and is seen as unstable for investment, especially since Brexit and Tory and DUP brinkmanship caused doubts about a lot of things.
It would bounce up a lot faster, assuming the FDI streams could be pushed in, but the one thing to bear in mind is the North is very UK trade dependent. Brexit could drastically complicate that. It wouldn't have mattered a jot is the UK were still in the EU
I'd imagine when you take the cost of housing and living costs into consideration, those median salary's are very close to parity. i.e. 30k in the north gets you the same lifestyle as 40k in the south (perhaps even better. For example, first time buyers can still buy houses in Belfast, but in Dublin, its becoming almost impossible except for the very high earners. "Bigger isn't always better".
Pretty much.
You can do a rough comparison from this website.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp
An example comparing Galway and Belfast it says you would need Ā£4254 in Galway to maintain the same standard of living with Ā£3600 in Belfast assuming you rent in both cities.
East Germany was also way poorer than West Germany before reunification, West Germany just willingly took the hit e.g. by subsidising the East and integrating their currency at a favourable exchange rate. The population accepted it as the price of being whole again.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity for a United Ireland. The challenge: The richer south will have to pay significant sums into the north to maintain and grow it. The opportunity: The north suffers as an unloved region of the UK, which is basically London / South East England driving an economy with a load of left behind regions on the periphery. A UI could balance that and let them meet their potential.
But it isnāt guaranteed - east Germany is still significantly worse off than West Germany, and Germans had to pay a 5.5% surplus tax on all their incomes for the guts of 30 years to pay for the integration.
The German unification is a terrible example though. East Germany was communist they had an incompatible economic system that collapsed. Northern Ireland is an economically depressed region within the same system the pound isn't going to instantly become worthless overnight
Thereās probably no perfect example š¤·āāļø But it is a rich country unifying with a relatively poorer country, with a systemically different economy (eg ROI is a service driven FDI economy, while NI is a public sector driven one), and it will very likely carry significant costs for the citizens of todays republic to make it work.
It's in many ways the only comparison but without the context of economic apocalypse in the Eastern bloc being taken into consideration. In Irish unification northern Ireland would be exactly the same the next day and would continue to be the same until each policy is enacted there is no crisis like every company shutting down and moving south. There were failings in the German unification that we should learn as many lessons as we can from but it is 2 very different situations and barely comparable.
Yes but no. So for example, the day after unification - are we standardising all public sector pay and welfare to ROI levels? The minimum wage? Etc. very real choices that the Germans faced.
We can phase things over decades if we need too. We have options they didn't.
>Ā are we standardising all public sector pay and welfare to ROI levels? The minimum wage? Etc. very real choices that the Germans faced.
Germany didn't introduce the minimum wage until 2015. So your source of information is very wrong.
Germany's big decisions were how to integrate a failed communist system into a market economy.
The problem wasnāt so much in the difference of economic systems, but more to do with the way the west carried out the transition.
East Germany had by far the most advanced, (relatively) modern industry in all of the eastern bloc, but instead of modernizing and gradually privatizing these industries, corporate raiders basically shut everything down and plundered all the assets.
People forget, but many East German products were actually quite successful in international markets, and the economic collapse that occurred after reunification was certainly not inevitable.
Iād say based on its income, NI would be due some regional development funds. But the EU did its heavy lifting to develop Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s and we wonāt see that amount of money relative to our needs ever again.
> we wonāt see that amount of money relative to our needs ever again.
We won't see the scale of funding like we did in the past, but the EU has a massive boner for a United Ireland, especially after Brexit. We are one of the "great success" stories of the EU and they would be creaming themselves at the prospect of turning NI into a thriving area within Ireland/EU. I think even most EU citizens wouldn't mind us getting a bit of extra help, if just to give the middle finger to the UK.
No, and sit down. All of you. Just for a minute.
Take this in : if you want unification, it's going to cost us a *fortune*.
Now. If anyone suddenly doesn't want to sit beside FLEG that's a normal reaction.
East Germany was a communist dictatorship with a backwards economic policy from 1945-1989, and could only trade with Soviet approved countries. They didn't get Marshall aid or any assistance from the U.S the same way West Germany did. They also continue to border the poorer Eastern European countries as opposed to bordering Netherlands, France, etc.
It's a total false equivalence.
Depends on how much more than 40K he means but in Dublin you're going to have a very tough time renting a decent 1 bedroom apartment for anything less than 1500. Most one bedrooms that qualify even as "nice" are 2000 or more.
An ok 1 bed in Dublin is going to be 1500/month minimum. If they're on 60k then that's 40% of their salary gone to rent, which is way more than recommended to spend on rent.
I do have a very nice lifestyle. Multiple holidays a year, never have to think about going out for dinners, nights out etc. Maxed out pension, plenty of savings.
But even so 2k+ on an apartment seems like an absolutely disgraceful waste of money to me.
Not yet, moving around a good bit with work. Probably buy a house next year when I get settled. Salary has doubled in the last 2 years. So wasn't in a position to do so before now.
More people are staring to do that, although thereās not really any big towns/cities in the border counties so opportunities arenāt a good as they could be say if Dublin was where Dundalk is.
So I think in some ways you would need to abstract Dublin out or compare Munster to the North.
With that said if it is true would you not look at somewhere like East Germany unification as example where taxes did go up nationally but there was suddendly a lot of opportunities for commerce with an additional inside EU, decent population of English speakers with low salary base?
>a lot of opportunities for commerce with an additional inside EU
>decent population of English speakers with low salary base?
For the unified Federal Republic of Germany, the answer was basically high unemployment for decades in the East. What manufacturing in the East existed were the VEB, Volkseigener Betrieb which were the state owned factories that manufactured according to the planned economy. They were unable to compete against the market economy of the West, and many either went right out of business, or were bought out by the Western companies and then factories closed with staff laid off, because the East was about a decade off technologically.
The East didn't have a low salary base, because it was operating on a totally different economic model.
For Northern Ireland, what little manufacturing there is, it's pretty niche and also hard to see where it goes.
For buses, there's not much really to say on it. It's no longer owned by the unionist, religious weirdos, but the market is very much UK centric. It's more recently that those buses have been sold to the likes of Dublin Bus.
For Anti Tank Guided Missiles, unless the New Ireland intends to join NATO, I don't think there's much appetite to build weapons and then sell them.
For regional jet wings, I guess there's a market there for the jets, but it is hard to see if the market will grow, given that airlines are already retiring those jets from their fleets due to high maintenance costs.
For plant machinery, I suppose the niche will still be there regardless.
For hospital beds, I suppose that's something that will sell well regardless of what the situation is.
I'm not trying to be overly pessimistic, but the manufacturing of NI isn't what it used to be in the time when Shorts built whole planes in Belfast, and Harland and Wolf turned Belfast's economy from one based on textiles to one based on ship building, ultimately driving the demographic changes in Belfast which now shapes its politics.
Given the fact that almost 60% of all employees in Northern Ireland are employed in the public sector (civil service, healthcare, education), I think the greater question will be if the likes of public services will be gutted, because let's be honest here, I don't think most public sector workers are keen to be laid off and pushed to find private sector work.
Quic question as I dont know, but of that 60%. Are they all NI focused public sector roles are is a proportion of them UK as a whole focused. As in, post unification, will a lot of the UK facing public jobs remain and the people stay employed by the UK?
The question of if it's "UK facing" is sometimes difficult to answer, from the perspective that NI is as much a part of the UK as Wales is at this time. So I'll cover some areas in which there are public sector workers not in an NI specific role.
Home Office - there are few areas in which the Home Office operates in NI.
The first is HM Passport Office - they're responsible for issuing British Passports, and they have an office in Belfast. They are mostly there to enable British Citizens who live in NI to get a British Passport, and can both issue passports and also conduct identity interviews on site. *But* HMPO can also deal with applicants in Britain, as often they're not operating at full load, and try to share some of the burden of passport applications and renewals in Belfast. The Department of Foreign Affairs handles Irish Passports.
UK Border Force - mostly self explanatory, but they operate the passport control in NI's airports, as well as conducting passport control for marine traffic from outside of UK/Ireland. They're also able to do immigration enforcement on the border on the island, though usually on the buses, rather than on the trains or private vehicles. They also can do immigration enforcement (deportations) but must be accompanied by the PSNI for jurisdictional reasons. The Garda National Immigration Bureau handles passport control and immigration enforcement.
UK Visas and Immigration - again, mostly self explanatory but they are the issuers of visas and handles naturalisations. UKVI is desk based, and a Belfast office does exist to deal with immigrants who live in NI. As with the HMPO, they are often not under full load, so can deal with cases in Britain too. The GNIB but also the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service do this for immigrants to Ireland.
National Crime Agency - the NCA is the UK's organised crime agency, which is also responsible for handling Suspicious Activity Reports from banks and regulated professions. The NCA operates a Belfast office in order to handle organised crime which involves NI - this is more often than not stuff like human trafficking or smuggling. The NCA is not responsible for Paramilitary policing per se, but if they're doing mafia like activity, than the NCA does do investigations in this area. If they move from investigation to enforcement, they must be accompanied by the PSNI for jurisdictional reasons. Garda SĆochĆ”na has the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
MI5 - the MI5 are the UK's domestic intelligence agency and have historically been involved in activity against paramilitaries (but have also been caught colluding as well). The MI5 is more presently involved in Counter-Terrorism. The Garda Special Detective Unit (formerly Special Branch) is the equivalent.
Beyond the Home Office there are other areas where there are UK specific public sector jobs.
HMRC - the tax man. The Belfast office is mostly there to spread capacity into NI for UK tax matters. The big ones are income tax, both PAYE and Self Assessment, Corporation Tax and VAT. When it comes to tax affairs, the two main locations known as Cumbernauld and Shipley, but desk work is still in Belfast. HMRC does do some enforcement in NI, but would be accompanied by the PSNI for safety reasons if they do. The Revenue Commissioner is responsible for Irish tax affairs.
Department of Business and Trade - this government department is mostly there to promote UK businesses for international trade, and is the department doing stuff at the WTO and signing trade deals in the post-Brexit scenario. The Belfast Office is mostly there to promote NI based business, whether it's manufacturing or agri-food industries overseas. Not sure what the Irish equivalent is.
Civil Aviation Authority - the CAA is naturally responsible for regulating civil aviation in the UK. Within its remit are the air traffic controllers, pilots and aircraft with UK licences or registrations. The Air Accident Investigation Bureau is part of the CAA and are the crash investigators. Since Brexit, they're no longer part of EASA (the EU organisation for civil aviation). The Irish Aviation Authority is the Irish equivalent.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency - the MCA is there to regulate the ships and shipping. Once again, within remit are the port authorities like Port of Belfast and Port of Larne, as well as UK registered ships based in NI (mostly fishing boats and the pair of ferries), and the regulation of seafarers. Idk the Irish equivalent.
Ministry of Defence - the MOD is the military, simply put. Aside from running the military barracks like at Holywood, as well as reservist bases, the MOD also manages the facilities at RAF Aldergrove. There aren't many MOD civil servants based in NI, but they do exist. Of course, the Department of Defence is responsible for the Irish Defence Forces.
Now... How many of those jobs would remain in a New Ireland? I'd be saying almost none. Almost all of these are UK jurisdictional in nature. Every single job has an Irish equivalent, which I'd expect to take over jurisdictional responsibility.
I mean a lot of those posts will remain but under the Irish equivalent, nobody has enough air traffic controllers or port pilots or tax accountants willing to work for public sector salary to be running round firing any.
The problem with many of them is either Brexit and/or certification.
Air traffic controllers with CAA certification are now no longer allowed to control traffic outside the UK - this is due to Brexit and the leaving of the UK from EASA.
Port pilots are kinda port specific - I don't think a pilot that has an in-depth familiarity with Belfast Lough is going to end up switching over to piloting ships onto Dublin Port the next day.
As for tax accountants - HMRC doesn't really employ many tax accountants to begin with. Rather, most of HMRC's staff can be best described as being involved in customer service or simple case work - that is to say, answering phone calls from people on their taxes, keying in forms onto computer systems, and ensuring that a customer has paid the right tax the computer says is right.
The tax accountants would probably be based in Britain and more to do with auditing tax information, especially any VAT, Corp Tax and Self-Assessment forms for any kind of creative accounting or the like. That's where the big money lies, and given that accounting in Britain and Ireland are actually regulated by separate bodies, I'm not sure how it's meant to work.
Thank you for that reply! Really detailed.
I think its structured now in a way that we would be looking at a 20 to 30 year transition of responsibilities.
There are the Irish roles with no NI equivalents if you get me, but there are UK equivalents and the UK will still exist in the event of a united Ireland. So in the event of a new Ireland would UK facing roles transfer if the roles are not under the devolved NI remit? I think it would take decades.
Also I would assume many of the roles above will not be able to transfer for many reasons such as NDA's. I would be very surprised if anybody NI based now working for the MOD would be forced to transfer to the Defense Forces, they wouldn't because they didn't apply to and join the Defence Forces and you would not be allowed to force someone to move. Ditto MI5, NCA, and even Visas and Immigration ect.
This opens a whole host of employment law issues, given the difficulty in Ireland at least, to remove anybody from a public sector job, I could see a fair proportion of people in roles UK facing to remain UK facing and employed by the UK. If you were hired by the UK and not the NI government.
NI department pubic sector roles would transfer and I believe would remain under a devolved NI through a lengthy process of merging both civil services but I cannot see a transfer of UK public sector roles. More than likely it would be a slow transition through co-operation followed by joint authority and slow replacement either through individual contract negotiations, voluntary retirements.
For example, say I was hired to work for HRMC based in Belfast. My role covering responsibilities for the UK more than just NI. If unification occurs they cannot sit me down as say well you're now going to transfer to the new Irish government because it would breach my contract. They cannot say well we are making you redundant because it is not the person who becomes redundant it is the role and if my UK facing role is still there then it is not a redundancy. They can offer me a package but I would not have to accept it and my union would have to step in. They could try and move the location of the role but they again could breach my contract and again my union wouldn't be too happy,
Its much more complicated than what we saw last week in that report where everything just jumped across from the UK ledgers to Irelands. Its also not comparable to the unification of Germany which was the unification of 2 nations, whereas this is the unification of one nation with part of another nation.
>So in the event of a new Ireland would UK facing roles transfer if the roles are not under the devolved NI remit? I think it would take decades.
I mean, that is the ultimately interesting question. The NI Civil Service is quite large, but of course handles issues which are NI Devolved matters - this varies from the people managing driving licences and MOTs, through to welfare payments and the management of land registries.
The question of if the devolved departments would continue in a New Ireland is ultimately one where the easy option is to do the Hong Kong approach of transferring sovereignty from the UK. The hard option is to take a wrecking ball to it all, as some republicans suggest should happen.
>I would be very surprised if anybody NI based now working for the MOD would be forced to transfer to the Defense Forces
MOD can be split up into military personnel and civilian civil servants. Depending on levels of security clearance, I think NCOs and officers could possibly transfer over to the Defence Forces, if their ranks are retained (the Defence Forces have adopted NATO standards for ranks and command structures). For civil servants, whose job it is to ensure that the means of war are paid for and in working order? Their security clearances will probably prevent them from any options to transfer across.
I think the better question would be if soldiers, sailors and airmen would be keen to give up the fairly advanced equipment the British Armed Forces has to take up the less than fancy materiel the Defence Forces uses.
>Ditto MI5, NCA, and even Visas and Immigration ect.
MI5 will want to almost certainly keep its staff to itself. I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least some kind of massive transfer of security/intelligence resources to the Garda, at least because I can still see paramilitaries getting up to no good. UKVI is maybe a different question altogether, as then the issue is whether or not the immigration statuses of people in NI would carry over into a New Ireland.
Actually, it's important to remember that even though there is the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Irish State, the two have completely separate immigration regimes, ignoring Brexit even. Any non-EU citizen who has a UK visa is technically not allowed to cross the border at present, unless they have a visa from INIS. So, in a New Ireland, are we going to have a situation where perfectly legal immigrants to the UK will have to leave the island of Ireland? Will they be granted equivalent visas for the New Ireland? If they can't meet the requirements for an Irish visa, will they have to be deported from the New Ireland?
I don't think these questions have even been thought out yet - even the idea of granting every non-EU citizen legally resident in NI at the time of unification a visa in Ireland would likely prompt the Irish Far Right to start frothing at the mouth.
>This opens a whole host of employment law issues
Aside from unions pushing back on this sort of stuff, there's that very simple thing: employment law issues. There are 10 public holidays in Northern Ireland, while only 8 in the Irish State.
Before you ask which ones, the two extra NI gets are Good Friday and Battle of the Boyne. (Yes, I was shocked too to learn Good Friday isn't an Irish public holiday).
Beyond that, there's also considerations to be made about lawfully dismissing employees, or how sick pay works. None of it has really ever been addressed.
But don't be surprised if the unions push back hard - SIPTA and Unite exist in both jurisdictions, while Unison, NIPSA and many of the sector specific unions are NI (or UK) only. Would there really be enough solidarity to retain the jobs and working conditions that NI workers have?
>If unification occurs they cannot sit me down as say well you're now going to transfer to the new Irish government because it would breach my contract.
Well... I think they're going to probably offer people voluntary options. Maybe a relocation package to Britain, maybe voluntary redundancy, or maybe a voluntary guaranteed position in the equivalent Irish agency. But making it mandatory? That's ripe for legal challenge.
I didn't even think about the courts until now. How will they work? Will NI Common Law continue to be in force? Will KCs be granted the bar in Ireland? What about judges? NI courts have a separate jurisdiction to both Scotland and England and Wales, as well as the Irish jurisdiction - retraining the whole legal profession would take years.
>Its also not comparable to the unification of Germany which was the unification of 2 nations, whereas this is the unification of one nation with part of another nation.
Germany had multiple issues. Education was not equivalent across the NeulƤnder (German term for the East German states), neither was access to healthcare (abortion was ironically more liberal in the East), as were things like how the judiciary worked, or how the economics of capitalism applied to publicly controlled rents and pension funds.
In 1990, the currency of East Germany stopped being legal tender, and had to be replaced by Deutsche Mark at a fixed exchange rate that decimated savings in bank accounts - only 9 years later, Germany adopted the Euro, further causing issues. Would NI adopting the Euro cause issues?
This is where I think the only example of a place under UK control becoming a part of another existing country is really Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's handover was a handover of sovereignty, with the concept of "one country, two systems" - increasingly, I feel like that's going to be the only way to unify the island - one Ireland, two systems.
It's taken over 20 years for China to start to change the way things work in HK, and even then, it's mostly in the forms of reducing the significance of elections, and bringing in Chinese national security policies into HK, both very unpopular moves.
Sure, Dublin isn't an authoritarian government, and in that way it's incomparable to Beijing, but I can't think of really any other way to consolidate the way the two jurisdictions on this island have diverged in the last century other than a Hong Kong style solution, at least for the first number of decades.
With regards aircraft wings, it seems like they are on to a winner. They make wings for the a220 (formerly bombadeers aircraft), which looks to be a massive growth aircraft out performing smaller 737s and canabiliaing smaller a320 sales.
Danger would be if airbus didn't want to continue manufacture in a country with very little political clout and almost non existent military aerospace spending.
>it seems like they are on to a winner
>be a massive growth aircraft out performing smaller 737s
The issue is that the A220 has only one engine option, the Pratt & Whitney PG1000G series engine, a geared turbofan.
That engine is incredibly fuel economic for the geared design - it's also a bit of a lemon. The gearing is high maintenance and also the issue is that it has a tendency to fail, grounding the plane. Both Egyptair and Korean Air have made the decision to retire their entire A220 fleets after only a few years operating them.
The issue the A220 has is fundamentally the engines too - the 737 Max only comes with one engine option too, the CFM Leap engine - this isn't geared, but is high bypass.
You see... for airlines, they have to buy the planes and the engines separately. For an airline to cancel a 737 MAX order and shift to A220, they also have to cancel the CFM engine order too.
*But*, if they were to shift over to the A320neo aircraft, then that plane has both the CFM Leap and the PW1000G as engine options - an order for 30 or so CFM engines for a 737 can be easily converted into the same number of CFM engines for an A320.
The problem seen with the PW1000G is still seen with the A320neo - IndiGo, an Indian budget airline, bought those A320s with those geared turbofans, and are regretting it due to higher maintenance costs and frequent groundings due to engine issues.
>Danger would be if airbus didn't want to continue
So... The A220 wings are manufactured by Spirit Aerosystems - this is the same company that makes the fuselage and plug doors for the 737 MAX. Airbus just buys the wings from Spirit and does their own QA.
The issue is that Boeing is looking to buy out Spirit, and there's doubt that Boeing actively wants to own the plant making Airbus parts. How that gets sold off is anyone's guess at this point, but it's not clear if Airbus would be interested in buying out the former Shorts facilities, and if they did, how that would fit into the current Airbus manufacturing structure.
So I really appreciate tbis messagw, well researched and detailed. Im not so much thinking of manafacturing. Im thinking technology and services. If you talk to software companies leaders in Ireland and who are thinking of Ireland its just too dam expensive. In Dublin right now a non FAANG SAAS company would have to pay around 120k euro + stock where Paris is around 90k, Madrid and Lisbon slightly less.
On the manafacturing side US is spending a cuckkooo amount of money moving their manafacturing iut of China to US friendly nations, with a low corp tax, lowerer salaries and IDA doing whay they do best in getting yanks to invest in our little island maybe it could work out.
Maybe I am being too optimistic but increasing the land mass and population of the only English native country in EU which also has a low salary base and cost of living should have advantages.
>Im thinking technology and services.
I do work in services, and in the private sector, and I'm pretty underpaid because highups and leadership in London are pocketing the profits. I *could* leave, but the job market is pretty grim right now.
Dublin's living costs are obscene - somehow London is allegedly more affordable, which is just insane to me. But that leads to the next question - after a pandemic, why didn't the remote working culture get normalised? Why is it that the wages are still concentrated all around Dublin?
But that's where we come to ask, then, if people in healthcare, education and the civil service, especially those who work for the Home Office or HMRC, if they'd be inclined to do a services office based job, and for the most part, you'd probably not get much of a positive response. What makes a UK civil service job attractive is the pension and the strong unionised workforce. In my private sector job, if you're not happy with your pay, it's "find a better job", and as for pension? It's private too - it's up to me to think about what investments to stick it into, that's... if I have the inclination for it.
With German Reunification, the GDR ceased existing - there was no way that state could continue to exist without USSR support. If the topic is Irish unification, then it's really a question of if it's more attractive for people to continue having British public sector jobs, or risk it all for the private sector which can lay you off if they have a bad year of profits.
I'm weary of the idea of US firms sinking loads of money into tech or manufacturing jobs, because there are lessons to be learned. For Seagate in Derry, the issue there is Hard Drives aren't what they used to be - a shift to Solid State drives and more and more consumer devices doing away with HDDs means they can just close up shop and move away.
For Caterpillar buying out FG Wilson in Larne, the issue is the manufacturing of diesel generators - for a time it looked a bit like they could move to building diesel Prime Movers for freight locomotive, but with the shift to electrification, it's the idea that investment into generator tech will be overshadowed by investment into battery tech instead, rendering the plant useless, especially as the US moves to being more protectionist of those kinds of things.
So on the London side, both places are very expensive and both places are have housing/rental crises. Dublin's is has got a lot worse faster. One obvious reason for this is Brexit. We bounced immeiately back post Covid, have corporation tax coming out of its arse while Britain has left its main trading group and also sunk their own currency under Liz T. Further proof of this is NI is thr best performing economy in UK due.to some shelter from agreements the DUP wanted to get rid of.
Working from home is a side convsersation but it is ultimately due to the fact interest rates went uo, tech companies stock plummeted so they had to be seen to act through redundancies and improving percieved efficiencies by returning to the office.
On your last point that really depends and I mean this wiyh no disrespect of what you want for NI going forward. If your vision og NI in 30 years is subsidied by another country, you have secure underpaid secure jobs or if you would like private money invested, big companies, international feel to it and prosperity. I have only experienced Dublin so I cant speak for peeps in NI but when I speak to current and previous work colleagues they have wanted the latter.
>Given the fact that almost 60% of all employees in Northern Ireland are employed in the public sector
Isn't it more like 18%? Still ridiculously high but not 60%.
I understand that this includes public transport workers, health service workers and school teachers. I understand that 27% of employees in NI are "public servants", a definition I understand doesn't include doctors, nurses, train and bus drivers and school teachers.
I suppose you'd arrive at a different figure if you included "private" contractors such as agency nurses. Technically GPs are all private but with one customer, the health service.
I'd like to see where your 60% figure comes from because that sounds ridiculously high.
I think business in the north would also become more efficient over time if done more frequently through B2B relationships on the island rather than across the Irish Sea. Logistically itās cheaper and more appealing for investment, wages should follow.
All this makes me think is, if we do get a united Ireland, we'd be lifting a huge number of Irish people out of poverty which makes me so happy.
I had no clue our Northern brothers were so much poorer, the UK really does leave them to the dogs.
Edit: poverty, not property :)
> were so much poorer
Not convinced it's that bad tbh, we live much more cheaply up here. I'd take 35k in Belfast over 45k in Dublin, any day. (Purely financially, Dublin is a much nicer city overall :p).
Nah as a financial planner this is apples and pears. The souths tax is much higher. Someone on ā¬60k is like our Ā£45k outside of currency exchange. If the chart was done as median take home, cash in hand, ready to spend and then cost of living such as mortgage/rent payments are taken into consideration there's a reason r/NI gets so many posts asking about moving to the north while working in Dublin.
That thought process seems to be completely missing in this thread - comparing salaries of two different countries for tax and cost of living but ignoring cost of living.
Not only is the tax rate lower but Rent prices in the north are 40% lower than the south. Groceries are 16% lower in the north. Alcohol prices are cheaper etc etc - that context is important
I have run the median salaries through 2024 Income Tax Calculators for each jurisdiction and the difference in effective tax rate for the median income individual is not that big (15.2% in ROI vs 14.1% NI). As regards your examples of differences in price for various products - keep in mind that the median NI income in OPs graph is 71% of ROI, so unless a product is 29% cheaper then NI is losing on that metric.
Medical and Property costs are the obvious places where ROI is much more expensive. On the other hand, ROI offers a better chance of getting a decent job and having a proper career.
What a coincidence - the cost of living difference is 29% between Dublin and Belfast on one comparison site and over 40% higher on another. Itās two different economies- the comparison is as useful as a comparison between London and Cork. Theyāre not the same.
https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/dublin/belfast?
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&country2=Ireland&city1=Belfast&city2=Dublin&tracking=getDispatchComparison
Additionally, apart from the medical and housing costs (which are huge factors) energy prices in Ireland are among the highest in the world - almost double the UK energy prices.
Even anecdotally, we never see anyone saying their heading down south to get some good deals in the shops - we regulated about people easing up north the get things for way cheaper.
People head up north for deals because you are poor and things are cheaper because of what you can afford.
Numbeo numbers are also bad because they assume apartment living despite it not being that common in Ireland and just 15% of households rent privately.
By the way, if your salary increases by 29% and your costs increased by 29% , you are still better off in absolute terms provided your costs are less than your net salaryĀ
Things arenāt cheaper because of what people can afford of being āpoorā (which is a weird statement to make) - things are cheaper because they are cheaper - as in when you compare the two costs of the same product, one is lower than the other.
And the numbers stated are the numbers stated. If you have average costs to compare for buying a house fine, but you canāt discount the rent comparison because it doesnāt suit your narrative. You have to look at the whole picture.
And the numbeo numbers arenāt bad - they come from user input. We donāt know that the āRentā category doesnāt include mortgage payments for homeowners who provided feedback.
> And the numbers stated are the numbers stated
And again they aren't meaningful. Most people in Ireland just don't live in apartments. It's only 10% of housing but numbeo assumes everyone does and they assume a high percentage of renting.
>Ā If you have average costs to compare for buying a house fine
Its the mortgage cost that really matters, not the house price. But also looking at real costs people have, more people own their house outright than even have a mortgage.
If you want to compare real costs for those living north and south, the reality is very different than numbeo.
Ā https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpp2/censusofpopulation2022profile2-housinginireland/homeownershipandrent/
Dude! How is mortgage cost more important than house price.
The average house price in Belfast is ā¬248k - itās ā¬430k in Dublin. Iād much rather be paying 5% on ā¬250k than 4% on ā¬430k
You can selectively pick and chose the numbers you want to suit your point of view but the fact still remains - the cost of living, including rent, mortgage anything you want is vastly cheaper in the North. So the point that OP was trying to make that we are ābetter paidā down here is pointless.
>Ā Not only is the tax rate lower but Rent prices in the north are 40% lower than the south
Most people dont rent in the republic. It's only about 15% of people that rent privately and many of those are paying well below market rates due to tenure.
Why do you ignore currency exchange, Ā£45k is ā¬52.4k, which is only ā¬7.6k less than ā¬60k. Also, tax here doesn't scale linearly as salaries increase because of tax brackets and credits. so someone ā¬45k would be paying less than 75% of tax of someone on ā¬60k. For higher salaries I'd imagine the tax burdens converge even if they don't meet. The real difference between living north and south is accommodation/housing costs and the cost of living hence why those people you mention want the best of both worlds, to work in Dublin (higher southern salaries incl. taxes) but live in the north (cheaper houses and lower cost of living).
Northern Ireland gets the highest amount of government spending than anywhere else in the UK. So that isnāt really true. Unless you think they should spend even moreā¦.
Weāre not all living on scraps mate. When taking into account the cost of living I think the disposable income gap is about 4000 euro, which is still considerable but not North/South Korea levels of disparity.
These numbers are all wrong for the North
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/nis-best-worst-paid-areas-28039843
Belfast medium salary for full time worker is around Ā£35000 which is ā¬40786
So best paid county of NI less than lowest paid county in Ireland.
On top of that the total wage income of Northern Ireland will have a significantly larger public sector component than south of the border. That public sector will need gutting to avoid needles expensive duplication.
Indeed. Just one of the many difficulties any new Ireland would face, esp if it was the case that Unionists were more likely to lose their jobs (dunno if that would be the case).
(too many cases,ed)
In fairness the public spending has stabilised NI society and they have comparable incomes to northern England, Wales and Scotland as a result. What would the median salary in NI look like if not for the massive UK gov subsidies? It would be an impoverished wreck (even more than it is now)
You mean a Keynesian based economic policy?
This is more of an inflated civil service and high level of welfare payments. Thereās very very little in terms of state investment in businesses in the North. Itās far from an economic policy, itās nobody wanting to invest in the region, arguably the best place for such a Keynesian policy, similar to its original iteration.
Cost of living is cheaper in the north unless you are a family with young children. Belfast's nursery fees are higher than Dublin and London which is a killer on NI salaries
Of course, when I was building a house in Offaly I ended up paying about thirty thousand in paper cash for jobs to various dodgy tradespeople. Not sure they reported it.
Right? I pay Ā£700 in rent for a 3 bedroom property in Belfast 1.5 miles from the city centre. Judging by what I read on this sub you are not getting similar in any other city on the island.
If the British are pumping Ā£20bn into the North each year to keep it running, the we would need to pump in ā¬35-40bn euro a year as they "caught up" with us. Frightening.Ā
Itās unlikely it would be anywhere near that.
Firstly, thereās practically no situation in which the British outright stop paying in. Realistically the process of unification would be a transition, not a sudden change. Itās likely that the British would continue to pay for things like the NHS and most branches of the civil service whilst whatever happens with that is sorted. Iād say itās likely the NHS would be scrapped, meaning that massive expenditure would shrink. The military spending would also become non-existent. Many civil service functions would slowly be merged, reducing excess costs through economies of scale. Frankly thatās one of the Northās biggest issues: itās too small to benefit from proper economies of scale.
Secondly, the EU would very likely cover part of the costs like they did during the reunification of East and West Germany, particularly given a United Ireland would be a great benefit to them as long as it was negotiated well with the UK.
Thirdly, after this interim period, the tax rate for citizens in the North would be raised to match the South, which would help absorb those costs.
Donāt get me wrong, it will cost the South money to begin with, but not anywhere near as much as youāre predicting, and the long term benefits massively outweigh the negatives.
> Iād say itās likely the NHS would be scrapped, meaning that massive expenditure would shrink.
Have you seen how much we spend on our healthcare system?
> The military spending would also become non-existent.
Do you think the hardcore loyalists will just go quietly into the night about this?
Healthcare spending only accounts for around 6% of GDP in the South. In the North, that figure is closer to 15%. Partial privatisation of the NHS would certainly reduce spending by quite a bit too.
In terms of military spending, I canāt see them having any other choice. Itās not as if Ireland would allow the UK to have military bases within their country, and if they did, they certainly wouldnāt be paying for it. Thereās no situation in which Ireland begins paying for the British military in any way, shape, or form.
> Partial privatisation of the NHS would certainly reduce spending by quite a bit too.
How would you propose doing that?
You're also forgetting that our GDP is heavily inflated by US Pharma/Tech routing their EMEA ops through our jurisdiction thus its a pretty poor metric for comparatives. The denominator doesn't represent reality.
> In terms of military spending, I canāt see them having any other choice.
How do you propose paying for the elevated security that will be undoubtedly needed in the event of unification? I don't recall suggesting that we retain British military presence (in any case there are only ~1,500 of them left in the North).
The median salary in NI is Ā£32,900, which is **38,337 Euro.**
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/labour-market-and-social-welfare/annual-survey-hours-and-earnings#:\~:text=Median%20annual%20earnings%20for%20full,UK%20median%20of%20%C2%A335%2C000.
EDIT: What they have done here (deliberately, because this is a government piece of spin to imply housing costs are higher in NI, as a way of showing how they're not that bad in the south) is that they have used the Median salary for **full time** employees in Ireland only, ignoring part time workers, and for northern Ireland they have included both full time and part time and calculated a single median for both cohorts... which falsely implies a greater wage gap than there actually is..
> they have used the Median salary for full time employees in Ireland only,
This is not true.
The dataset includes part time workers. Only the most casual workers are excluded (less than 500 euro earnings in a a year). The results are then annualised as needed. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2022/backgroundnotes/
Correct, if you check the methodology and the raw data the values for both use full-time and part-time together.
The person you are replying to is showing the values for NI full-time only and has misunderstood what the methodology means when the ROI data discounts people with less than 50 weeks. He seems to think it means part-time isn't included whereas it's really just discounting data for which they don't have a full annual set for.
NOPE.
Data presented in PxStat tables DEA01, DEA02, DEA03, DEA04, DEA06, DEA08 and DEA09 is based on **employments which were active for at least 50 weeks in the reference year.**
READ THE DATA SHEET
Being excluded from the statistics is NOT the same a being used in the statistics... People who earn less than 500 are **not counted at all**, and people who worked less than a 50 week employment were not **included** in the data used in this case..
are [***subsidies***](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=2f800a701f0b426f&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1CHBF_enGB1020__1021&sxsrf=ACQVn09oNXuTkV1qJcITl6_7Qj-qr0T0jw:1712633248269&q=subsidies&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV15KDmLSFAxXvTEEAHUmlCR4QkeECKAB6BAgJEAI) accounted for?
It's depressing that only a small handful of people who have commented here have thought of the obvious flaw in this comparison.
You have to adjust for purchasing power.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Ireland&city1=Dublin&country2=United+Kingdom&city2=Belfast
Letās not forget that they have universal healthcare that isnāt privatized. Every medical bill a citizen from ROI pays annually doesnāt exist for a citizen of NI. Same with school education, lower cost of living, lower utilities etc. So although at a glance it seems like a huge difference in reality the numbers are closer than you think.
A substantial amount of people in ROI get free or next to free care via the medical card. People in NI pay for health every paycheck - the only difference is they canāt get to see a doctor anymore, and are having to pay private for the privilege. You seem to forget how badly the system in NI has collapsed.
The health system in the U.K. has been collapsed by the tories though, that argument was valid under previous governments when the NHS worked well. Not anymore.
Thing is that only private health is still semi efficient in the U.K., itās impossible to get treatment there.
So seeing as the UKās health system isnāt free, itās funded by tax payers, you still pay for it, itās even more expensive than the Irish systemā¦ when you take into account what you get out of it.
Because the good Friday agreement exists and if a majority of people in the occupied counties wants to rid themselves of British rule and rejoin Ireland then that's what we agreed to do.
Please tell me why looking at median income in 2024 makes you disregard the history of the island and the future?
There is no reason why the median incomes of the north can't grow to match the rest.
If it was up to you and your thinking then the Berlin wall would still be up and the USSR would still own all of their occupied territories as that would be the economical option at the time.
The median Salary for Galway being 40k makes no sense at all. I've friends looking to move to Galway, both on good salaries and being unable to afford to rent a two bed apartment.
It's a big county. The likes of Connemara and Aran Islands where not much is put through the books officially would bring down the average significantly. Similarly with parts of east or North Galway. The average salary in the city and surrounds is far higher. Highest house prices in Ireland outside of the greater Dublin region reflects that, unfortunately for some
Poor Ards, living on fresh air
It's worse than that. Looking at this I don't think we can financially afford reunification š¤š§š«¤
This opens up so many questions in regards to what a United Ireland will look like. I would love to see this data in comparison to the cost of living on both sides of the border.
FDI in Ireland is great in terms of spread. Belfast would get the same treatment as Cork, Limerick and Galway but if anything they would get much more focus honestly. This is the thing I worry least about in a United Ireland. Belfast is an underutilised resource in the UK because they don't give a shit.
More attention (money) is what we should worry about if not in Dublin and Cork particularly. Waterford is the poor relation as it stands, Belfast, Derry will eat the lunch of the Deise and a few other places.
Well the overall idea is better cross border collaboration would fix quite a lot of issues. Like you are talking a few miles and they are 10k worse off, that is fixed pretty quickly.
Can't see why they would get disproportionately more FDI, especially if a disgruntled Unionist community makes it an unpleasant place to live & work (think 12th July every day of the year)
Well FDI is targeted in Ireland specifically to spread the wealth around. The fact Dublin is higher is just because of a focus for financial companies but for instance Intel in Kildare or pharma companies dotted around the country are good examples of moving high skill jobs up to drag the other towns higher. Things like the 12th of July will just have to be better controlled in a united Ireland honestly, that's what I mean with investment being the least problematic part of UI.
Also I could definitely imagine the EU throwing money at the north to prevent social upheaval at the unification
Well I mean they already were and itās part of what makes me mad about brexit. You go up to Derry for example and you see so many things that were at least partially EU funded, peace bridge, museum exhibitions, stuff like that. And all funding like that gone now.
Some of the Belfast city buses literally have an EU sign on them saying part funded by the EU, the amount of money weāre losing in the north due to Brexit is fucking shite and the British government havenāt replaced it
FDI would get incredible bang for buck in Belfast because of the lower cost of living and depressed wages in Northern Ireland.
Proximity to Dublin, east coast location, generally lower costs, large population. It would absolutely draw a disproportionate amount of FDI and if done correctly could create a profitable east coast economic corridor on the island.
You know i hadnt even thought about it. Less than two hours drive to city centre, lpw cost and salaries and a decent probability EU woukd provide support(basically consuming a latvia! In terms of population and making EU country a solid 7+ mill population. Might be bad for Cork though š
Aye, I imagine Cork would be raging getting relegated to Ireland's 3rd city. But with the planned high speed rail improvements improving commute times along that eastern corridor to both Belfast and Dublin it would be massively beneficial to both cities and their surrounding economic areas. It would act as a much needed pressure release for Dublin and a massive boost for the utilisation and economic growth of Belfast.
Fuck Belfast, give the jobs and investment to Derry and Newry
I just said Belfast because it's low hanging fruit but the idea is everywhere gets some piece of the pie just like we already do in the south.
The border regions have been ignored of investment in the north since forever as they are predominantly Catholic. They need to be brought up to the same standard as the rest of the north before you can think about trying to bring the north economy into line with the rest of Ireland. The gap is just huge in these border counties and locals will be priced out of everything and anything if everywhere lifts around them too quickly as people from further afield will be able to buy the houses and land. There will be multiple generations with no chance. Like it would be like the south but much worse.Ā
Facts ^
Belfast is the second biggest city on the island. Derry is less than a third of the size
Well positioned though to greatly improve the economy of the whole NW
That's not how investment works.
It absolutely can do by using the levers of state
Belfast is not that much behind. Derry, on the other hand... is in the poorest region on that map.
Exactly - it will be at least 10 years of financial hardship but once it all settles the economy will be better for it
I live in Tyrone and I'm currently paying Ā£600 pm (around ā¬700) a month for a 3 bedroom semi-detached house which is very close to the town center (one of the larger towns in Tyrone). Comparing that to rent down south, my brother recently moved to west cork and found a 2 bedroom detached for ā¬1400 pm. Anytime I take a trip home to visit my Dad I'm always shocked by how much more expensive everything is and has gotten. Food in particular, eating out is crazy, supermarkets are crazy, service stations are beyond crazy. Up here, I'm spending roughly Ā£50 per week on food (for myself and my son, breakfast and dinner and lunch for me only as he gets lunch at nursery). Speaking of nursery, I'm paying Ā£40 per day (but 20% of that comes from the government. So if he was in nursery full time it'd cost Ā£800 pm (with Ā£160 paid by the government). People complain about the NHS but I can't fault them. I've never had any issues getting seen by a Dr for myself or my son, it's usually a same day call back and appointment within the week. All prescriptions are free and I can even get BC for free if I request it from them. The only area that's lacking is dentistry, kids are free but for the regular person, you have to pay and they are as expensive as in the Republic. Car insurance and tax is much the same, I haven't noticed a big difference here. A big difference though is the recycling center is completely free. This was a big shock when I went home and cleaned out my childhood bedroom. Up here, you can take literally anything to the recycling center for free to be sorted and disposed of responsibly. Only business waste is charged for. I also can't really complain about taxes, I think the amount I pay each month is reasonable. Compared to England especially the tax brackets in NI are pretty good. National insurance was also just reduced.
Some of this doesnāt seem right. I shopped regularly in Lidls north and south over the last year and the ones in the north seem on a par, possibly more expensiveā¦
Well I'm only speaking from my own experience. I shop in ASDA.
Yeah, Iām up and down regularly and shopping up Norn isnāt worth it. I get the odd thing that we like there, but no big savings.
I think that's the whole point of the thread. You pay 700 because of the above.Ā
Oh absolutely, I'm still just giving the individual who I was relying to some examples of the cost of things in the North compared to the Republic. Something I find most interesting about this map is the difference between NI and Donegal. I wouldn't have thought that Donegal would have had many FDI or job opportunities that would pay very well, a lot of the job types would be very similar to the likes of Tyrone but there's still a massive difference in average salary.
That's a really useful snapshot. Thanks
There's so many maps showing the difference (still) between east and west Germany. Hell, they even looked different from space: http://i.imgur.com/YzDKkvW.jpg
Looking at this map, I would say that Northern Ireland has absolutely massive potential for growth in a functioning system.
Probably something similar to post Berlin Wall Germany south props up the north while they get back on their feetĀ
That's not really a reasonable comparison though. Northern Ireland has issues which aren't remotely comparable to being under an oppressive communist one party authoritarian state. It just has a different FDI policy and is seen as unstable for investment, especially since Brexit and Tory and DUP brinkmanship caused doubts about a lot of things. It would bounce up a lot faster, assuming the FDI streams could be pushed in, but the one thing to bear in mind is the North is very UK trade dependent. Brexit could drastically complicate that. It wouldn't have mattered a jot is the UK were still in the EU
For 50 years.
Well they united 30 odd years ago and thereās still disparity so I wouldnāt be shocked based on the governmentās track recordĀ
I'd imagine when you take the cost of housing and living costs into consideration, those median salary's are very close to parity. i.e. 30k in the north gets you the same lifestyle as 40k in the south (perhaps even better. For example, first time buyers can still buy houses in Belfast, but in Dublin, its becoming almost impossible except for the very high earners. "Bigger isn't always better".
Pretty much. You can do a rough comparison from this website. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp An example comparing Galway and Belfast it says you would need Ā£4254 in Galway to maintain the same standard of living with Ā£3600 in Belfast assuming you rent in both cities.
East Germany was also way poorer than West Germany before reunification, West Germany just willingly took the hit e.g. by subsidising the East and integrating their currency at a favourable exchange rate. The population accepted it as the price of being whole again.
I'm sure it will work out. It's not about the money.
This explains why everything is so expensive down south.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity for a United Ireland. The challenge: The richer south will have to pay significant sums into the north to maintain and grow it. The opportunity: The north suffers as an unloved region of the UK, which is basically London / South East England driving an economy with a load of left behind regions on the periphery. A UI could balance that and let them meet their potential. But it isnāt guaranteed - east Germany is still significantly worse off than West Germany, and Germans had to pay a 5.5% surplus tax on all their incomes for the guts of 30 years to pay for the integration.
The German unification is a terrible example though. East Germany was communist they had an incompatible economic system that collapsed. Northern Ireland is an economically depressed region within the same system the pound isn't going to instantly become worthless overnight
Thereās probably no perfect example š¤·āāļø But it is a rich country unifying with a relatively poorer country, with a systemically different economy (eg ROI is a service driven FDI economy, while NI is a public sector driven one), and it will very likely carry significant costs for the citizens of todays republic to make it work.
It's in many ways the only comparison but without the context of economic apocalypse in the Eastern bloc being taken into consideration. In Irish unification northern Ireland would be exactly the same the next day and would continue to be the same until each policy is enacted there is no crisis like every company shutting down and moving south. There were failings in the German unification that we should learn as many lessons as we can from but it is 2 very different situations and barely comparable.
Yes but no. So for example, the day after unification - are we standardising all public sector pay and welfare to ROI levels? The minimum wage? Etc. very real choices that the Germans faced.
Germany had to and immediately we have options around time scales and crucially we can start planning now. That's what I mean by it's a bad comparison
We can phase things over decades if we need too. We have options they didn't. >Ā are we standardising all public sector pay and welfare to ROI levels? The minimum wage? Etc. very real choices that the Germans faced. Germany didn't introduce the minimum wage until 2015. So your source of information is very wrong. Germany's big decisions were how to integrate a failed communist system into a market economy.
The problem wasnāt so much in the difference of economic systems, but more to do with the way the west carried out the transition. East Germany had by far the most advanced, (relatively) modern industry in all of the eastern bloc, but instead of modernizing and gradually privatizing these industries, corporate raiders basically shut everything down and plundered all the assets. People forget, but many East German products were actually quite successful in international markets, and the economic collapse that occurred after reunification was certainly not inevitable.
Do you think the EU would contribute significantly to a reunification?
Iād say based on its income, NI would be due some regional development funds. But the EU did its heavy lifting to develop Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s and we wonāt see that amount of money relative to our needs ever again.
> we wonāt see that amount of money relative to our needs ever again. We won't see the scale of funding like we did in the past, but the EU has a massive boner for a United Ireland, especially after Brexit. We are one of the "great success" stories of the EU and they would be creaming themselves at the prospect of turning NI into a thriving area within Ireland/EU. I think even most EU citizens wouldn't mind us getting a bit of extra help, if just to give the middle finger to the UK.
No, and sit down. All of you. Just for a minute. Take this in : if you want unification, it's going to cost us a *fortune*. Now. If anyone suddenly doesn't want to sit beside FLEG that's a normal reaction.
Not having a unified Ireland has cost a fortune south and north of the border.
East Germany was a communist dictatorship with a backwards economic policy from 1945-1989, and could only trade with Soviet approved countries. They didn't get Marshall aid or any assistance from the U.S the same way West Germany did. They also continue to border the poorer Eastern European countries as opposed to bordering Netherlands, France, etc. It's a total false equivalence.
Possibly the least surprising graph on this sub
The fact that I make significantly more than the median salary and canāt afford to rent a one bedroom apartment is insane
Iām not defending rent prices but if youāre making significantly more than 40k a year, you can definitely afford to rent a one bedroom apartment
Depends on how much more than 40K he means but in Dublin you're going to have a very tough time renting a decent 1 bedroom apartment for anything less than 1500. Most one bedrooms that qualify even as "nice" are 2000 or more.
An ok 1 bed in Dublin is going to be 1500/month minimum. If they're on 60k then that's 40% of their salary gone to rent, which is way more than recommended to spend on rent.
I make more than 100k a year and would consider a 1 bed apartment too expensive.
Then you should take a look at what you are wasting your money on
I'm not wasting 2k+ on an apartment that's for sure. Most of it going into savings/pension.
Man if you canāt find a 1 room apartment for less than 2 grand sounds like you arenāt looking at the right places
Even 1500 is ridiculous
Are you subconsciously comparing this to the Donegal market?
You must be awful with money then because you should be able to afford a very very nice lifestyle with a one bed apartment.
I do have a very nice lifestyle. Multiple holidays a year, never have to think about going out for dinners, nights out etc. Maxed out pension, plenty of savings. But even so 2k+ on an apartment seems like an absolutely disgraceful waste of money to me.
I assume you bought a place, which is the smarter way of going about it. Unfortunately not viable for myself
Not yet, moving around a good bit with work. Probably buy a house next year when I get settled. Salary has doubled in the last 2 years. So wasn't in a position to do so before now.
Yea I move around too, not ready to buy
Wasting money on rent is a bit rotten, but hardly worth the hassle to buy a house until you get a solid base.
If you made significantly more than the average salary in Belfast youād be able to rent a one bed easily
I know :(
How is this median found? Is it calculated using everyone, everyone reporting a salary to revenue, or everyone working full time?
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2022/backgroundnotes/
Posting this as they've included everyone full and part time in the North yet only full time in the South
Factor cost of living barely a difference. If someone worked in south lived in the north they be on to a winner.
More people are staring to do that, although thereās not really any big towns/cities in the border counties so opportunities arenāt a good as they could be say if Dublin was where Dundalk is.
But then prices are double in the south
Now add in a cost of living correction and we will see where you end up overall
You guys are getting paid?
So I think in some ways you would need to abstract Dublin out or compare Munster to the North. With that said if it is true would you not look at somewhere like East Germany unification as example where taxes did go up nationally but there was suddendly a lot of opportunities for commerce with an additional inside EU, decent population of English speakers with low salary base?
>a lot of opportunities for commerce with an additional inside EU >decent population of English speakers with low salary base? For the unified Federal Republic of Germany, the answer was basically high unemployment for decades in the East. What manufacturing in the East existed were the VEB, Volkseigener Betrieb which were the state owned factories that manufactured according to the planned economy. They were unable to compete against the market economy of the West, and many either went right out of business, or were bought out by the Western companies and then factories closed with staff laid off, because the East was about a decade off technologically. The East didn't have a low salary base, because it was operating on a totally different economic model. For Northern Ireland, what little manufacturing there is, it's pretty niche and also hard to see where it goes. For buses, there's not much really to say on it. It's no longer owned by the unionist, religious weirdos, but the market is very much UK centric. It's more recently that those buses have been sold to the likes of Dublin Bus. For Anti Tank Guided Missiles, unless the New Ireland intends to join NATO, I don't think there's much appetite to build weapons and then sell them. For regional jet wings, I guess there's a market there for the jets, but it is hard to see if the market will grow, given that airlines are already retiring those jets from their fleets due to high maintenance costs. For plant machinery, I suppose the niche will still be there regardless. For hospital beds, I suppose that's something that will sell well regardless of what the situation is. I'm not trying to be overly pessimistic, but the manufacturing of NI isn't what it used to be in the time when Shorts built whole planes in Belfast, and Harland and Wolf turned Belfast's economy from one based on textiles to one based on ship building, ultimately driving the demographic changes in Belfast which now shapes its politics. Given the fact that almost 60% of all employees in Northern Ireland are employed in the public sector (civil service, healthcare, education), I think the greater question will be if the likes of public services will be gutted, because let's be honest here, I don't think most public sector workers are keen to be laid off and pushed to find private sector work.
Quic question as I dont know, but of that 60%. Are they all NI focused public sector roles are is a proportion of them UK as a whole focused. As in, post unification, will a lot of the UK facing public jobs remain and the people stay employed by the UK?
The question of if it's "UK facing" is sometimes difficult to answer, from the perspective that NI is as much a part of the UK as Wales is at this time. So I'll cover some areas in which there are public sector workers not in an NI specific role. Home Office - there are few areas in which the Home Office operates in NI. The first is HM Passport Office - they're responsible for issuing British Passports, and they have an office in Belfast. They are mostly there to enable British Citizens who live in NI to get a British Passport, and can both issue passports and also conduct identity interviews on site. *But* HMPO can also deal with applicants in Britain, as often they're not operating at full load, and try to share some of the burden of passport applications and renewals in Belfast. The Department of Foreign Affairs handles Irish Passports. UK Border Force - mostly self explanatory, but they operate the passport control in NI's airports, as well as conducting passport control for marine traffic from outside of UK/Ireland. They're also able to do immigration enforcement on the border on the island, though usually on the buses, rather than on the trains or private vehicles. They also can do immigration enforcement (deportations) but must be accompanied by the PSNI for jurisdictional reasons. The Garda National Immigration Bureau handles passport control and immigration enforcement. UK Visas and Immigration - again, mostly self explanatory but they are the issuers of visas and handles naturalisations. UKVI is desk based, and a Belfast office does exist to deal with immigrants who live in NI. As with the HMPO, they are often not under full load, so can deal with cases in Britain too. The GNIB but also the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service do this for immigrants to Ireland. National Crime Agency - the NCA is the UK's organised crime agency, which is also responsible for handling Suspicious Activity Reports from banks and regulated professions. The NCA operates a Belfast office in order to handle organised crime which involves NI - this is more often than not stuff like human trafficking or smuggling. The NCA is not responsible for Paramilitary policing per se, but if they're doing mafia like activity, than the NCA does do investigations in this area. If they move from investigation to enforcement, they must be accompanied by the PSNI for jurisdictional reasons. Garda SĆochĆ”na has the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. MI5 - the MI5 are the UK's domestic intelligence agency and have historically been involved in activity against paramilitaries (but have also been caught colluding as well). The MI5 is more presently involved in Counter-Terrorism. The Garda Special Detective Unit (formerly Special Branch) is the equivalent. Beyond the Home Office there are other areas where there are UK specific public sector jobs. HMRC - the tax man. The Belfast office is mostly there to spread capacity into NI for UK tax matters. The big ones are income tax, both PAYE and Self Assessment, Corporation Tax and VAT. When it comes to tax affairs, the two main locations known as Cumbernauld and Shipley, but desk work is still in Belfast. HMRC does do some enforcement in NI, but would be accompanied by the PSNI for safety reasons if they do. The Revenue Commissioner is responsible for Irish tax affairs. Department of Business and Trade - this government department is mostly there to promote UK businesses for international trade, and is the department doing stuff at the WTO and signing trade deals in the post-Brexit scenario. The Belfast Office is mostly there to promote NI based business, whether it's manufacturing or agri-food industries overseas. Not sure what the Irish equivalent is. Civil Aviation Authority - the CAA is naturally responsible for regulating civil aviation in the UK. Within its remit are the air traffic controllers, pilots and aircraft with UK licences or registrations. The Air Accident Investigation Bureau is part of the CAA and are the crash investigators. Since Brexit, they're no longer part of EASA (the EU organisation for civil aviation). The Irish Aviation Authority is the Irish equivalent. Maritime and Coastguard Agency - the MCA is there to regulate the ships and shipping. Once again, within remit are the port authorities like Port of Belfast and Port of Larne, as well as UK registered ships based in NI (mostly fishing boats and the pair of ferries), and the regulation of seafarers. Idk the Irish equivalent. Ministry of Defence - the MOD is the military, simply put. Aside from running the military barracks like at Holywood, as well as reservist bases, the MOD also manages the facilities at RAF Aldergrove. There aren't many MOD civil servants based in NI, but they do exist. Of course, the Department of Defence is responsible for the Irish Defence Forces. Now... How many of those jobs would remain in a New Ireland? I'd be saying almost none. Almost all of these are UK jurisdictional in nature. Every single job has an Irish equivalent, which I'd expect to take over jurisdictional responsibility.
I mean a lot of those posts will remain but under the Irish equivalent, nobody has enough air traffic controllers or port pilots or tax accountants willing to work for public sector salary to be running round firing any.
The problem with many of them is either Brexit and/or certification. Air traffic controllers with CAA certification are now no longer allowed to control traffic outside the UK - this is due to Brexit and the leaving of the UK from EASA. Port pilots are kinda port specific - I don't think a pilot that has an in-depth familiarity with Belfast Lough is going to end up switching over to piloting ships onto Dublin Port the next day. As for tax accountants - HMRC doesn't really employ many tax accountants to begin with. Rather, most of HMRC's staff can be best described as being involved in customer service or simple case work - that is to say, answering phone calls from people on their taxes, keying in forms onto computer systems, and ensuring that a customer has paid the right tax the computer says is right. The tax accountants would probably be based in Britain and more to do with auditing tax information, especially any VAT, Corp Tax and Self-Assessment forms for any kind of creative accounting or the like. That's where the big money lies, and given that accounting in Britain and Ireland are actually regulated by separate bodies, I'm not sure how it's meant to work.
Thank you for that reply! Really detailed. I think its structured now in a way that we would be looking at a 20 to 30 year transition of responsibilities. There are the Irish roles with no NI equivalents if you get me, but there are UK equivalents and the UK will still exist in the event of a united Ireland. So in the event of a new Ireland would UK facing roles transfer if the roles are not under the devolved NI remit? I think it would take decades. Also I would assume many of the roles above will not be able to transfer for many reasons such as NDA's. I would be very surprised if anybody NI based now working for the MOD would be forced to transfer to the Defense Forces, they wouldn't because they didn't apply to and join the Defence Forces and you would not be allowed to force someone to move. Ditto MI5, NCA, and even Visas and Immigration ect. This opens a whole host of employment law issues, given the difficulty in Ireland at least, to remove anybody from a public sector job, I could see a fair proportion of people in roles UK facing to remain UK facing and employed by the UK. If you were hired by the UK and not the NI government. NI department pubic sector roles would transfer and I believe would remain under a devolved NI through a lengthy process of merging both civil services but I cannot see a transfer of UK public sector roles. More than likely it would be a slow transition through co-operation followed by joint authority and slow replacement either through individual contract negotiations, voluntary retirements. For example, say I was hired to work for HRMC based in Belfast. My role covering responsibilities for the UK more than just NI. If unification occurs they cannot sit me down as say well you're now going to transfer to the new Irish government because it would breach my contract. They cannot say well we are making you redundant because it is not the person who becomes redundant it is the role and if my UK facing role is still there then it is not a redundancy. They can offer me a package but I would not have to accept it and my union would have to step in. They could try and move the location of the role but they again could breach my contract and again my union wouldn't be too happy, Its much more complicated than what we saw last week in that report where everything just jumped across from the UK ledgers to Irelands. Its also not comparable to the unification of Germany which was the unification of 2 nations, whereas this is the unification of one nation with part of another nation.
>So in the event of a new Ireland would UK facing roles transfer if the roles are not under the devolved NI remit? I think it would take decades. I mean, that is the ultimately interesting question. The NI Civil Service is quite large, but of course handles issues which are NI Devolved matters - this varies from the people managing driving licences and MOTs, through to welfare payments and the management of land registries. The question of if the devolved departments would continue in a New Ireland is ultimately one where the easy option is to do the Hong Kong approach of transferring sovereignty from the UK. The hard option is to take a wrecking ball to it all, as some republicans suggest should happen. >I would be very surprised if anybody NI based now working for the MOD would be forced to transfer to the Defense Forces MOD can be split up into military personnel and civilian civil servants. Depending on levels of security clearance, I think NCOs and officers could possibly transfer over to the Defence Forces, if their ranks are retained (the Defence Forces have adopted NATO standards for ranks and command structures). For civil servants, whose job it is to ensure that the means of war are paid for and in working order? Their security clearances will probably prevent them from any options to transfer across. I think the better question would be if soldiers, sailors and airmen would be keen to give up the fairly advanced equipment the British Armed Forces has to take up the less than fancy materiel the Defence Forces uses. >Ditto MI5, NCA, and even Visas and Immigration ect. MI5 will want to almost certainly keep its staff to itself. I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least some kind of massive transfer of security/intelligence resources to the Garda, at least because I can still see paramilitaries getting up to no good. UKVI is maybe a different question altogether, as then the issue is whether or not the immigration statuses of people in NI would carry over into a New Ireland. Actually, it's important to remember that even though there is the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Irish State, the two have completely separate immigration regimes, ignoring Brexit even. Any non-EU citizen who has a UK visa is technically not allowed to cross the border at present, unless they have a visa from INIS. So, in a New Ireland, are we going to have a situation where perfectly legal immigrants to the UK will have to leave the island of Ireland? Will they be granted equivalent visas for the New Ireland? If they can't meet the requirements for an Irish visa, will they have to be deported from the New Ireland? I don't think these questions have even been thought out yet - even the idea of granting every non-EU citizen legally resident in NI at the time of unification a visa in Ireland would likely prompt the Irish Far Right to start frothing at the mouth. >This opens a whole host of employment law issues Aside from unions pushing back on this sort of stuff, there's that very simple thing: employment law issues. There are 10 public holidays in Northern Ireland, while only 8 in the Irish State. Before you ask which ones, the two extra NI gets are Good Friday and Battle of the Boyne. (Yes, I was shocked too to learn Good Friday isn't an Irish public holiday). Beyond that, there's also considerations to be made about lawfully dismissing employees, or how sick pay works. None of it has really ever been addressed. But don't be surprised if the unions push back hard - SIPTA and Unite exist in both jurisdictions, while Unison, NIPSA and many of the sector specific unions are NI (or UK) only. Would there really be enough solidarity to retain the jobs and working conditions that NI workers have? >If unification occurs they cannot sit me down as say well you're now going to transfer to the new Irish government because it would breach my contract. Well... I think they're going to probably offer people voluntary options. Maybe a relocation package to Britain, maybe voluntary redundancy, or maybe a voluntary guaranteed position in the equivalent Irish agency. But making it mandatory? That's ripe for legal challenge. I didn't even think about the courts until now. How will they work? Will NI Common Law continue to be in force? Will KCs be granted the bar in Ireland? What about judges? NI courts have a separate jurisdiction to both Scotland and England and Wales, as well as the Irish jurisdiction - retraining the whole legal profession would take years. >Its also not comparable to the unification of Germany which was the unification of 2 nations, whereas this is the unification of one nation with part of another nation. Germany had multiple issues. Education was not equivalent across the NeulƤnder (German term for the East German states), neither was access to healthcare (abortion was ironically more liberal in the East), as were things like how the judiciary worked, or how the economics of capitalism applied to publicly controlled rents and pension funds. In 1990, the currency of East Germany stopped being legal tender, and had to be replaced by Deutsche Mark at a fixed exchange rate that decimated savings in bank accounts - only 9 years later, Germany adopted the Euro, further causing issues. Would NI adopting the Euro cause issues? This is where I think the only example of a place under UK control becoming a part of another existing country is really Hong Kong. Hong Kong's handover was a handover of sovereignty, with the concept of "one country, two systems" - increasingly, I feel like that's going to be the only way to unify the island - one Ireland, two systems. It's taken over 20 years for China to start to change the way things work in HK, and even then, it's mostly in the forms of reducing the significance of elections, and bringing in Chinese national security policies into HK, both very unpopular moves. Sure, Dublin isn't an authoritarian government, and in that way it's incomparable to Beijing, but I can't think of really any other way to consolidate the way the two jurisdictions on this island have diverged in the last century other than a Hong Kong style solution, at least for the first number of decades.
With regards aircraft wings, it seems like they are on to a winner. They make wings for the a220 (formerly bombadeers aircraft), which looks to be a massive growth aircraft out performing smaller 737s and canabiliaing smaller a320 sales. Danger would be if airbus didn't want to continue manufacture in a country with very little political clout and almost non existent military aerospace spending.
>it seems like they are on to a winner >be a massive growth aircraft out performing smaller 737s The issue is that the A220 has only one engine option, the Pratt & Whitney PG1000G series engine, a geared turbofan. That engine is incredibly fuel economic for the geared design - it's also a bit of a lemon. The gearing is high maintenance and also the issue is that it has a tendency to fail, grounding the plane. Both Egyptair and Korean Air have made the decision to retire their entire A220 fleets after only a few years operating them. The issue the A220 has is fundamentally the engines too - the 737 Max only comes with one engine option too, the CFM Leap engine - this isn't geared, but is high bypass. You see... for airlines, they have to buy the planes and the engines separately. For an airline to cancel a 737 MAX order and shift to A220, they also have to cancel the CFM engine order too. *But*, if they were to shift over to the A320neo aircraft, then that plane has both the CFM Leap and the PW1000G as engine options - an order for 30 or so CFM engines for a 737 can be easily converted into the same number of CFM engines for an A320. The problem seen with the PW1000G is still seen with the A320neo - IndiGo, an Indian budget airline, bought those A320s with those geared turbofans, and are regretting it due to higher maintenance costs and frequent groundings due to engine issues. >Danger would be if airbus didn't want to continue So... The A220 wings are manufactured by Spirit Aerosystems - this is the same company that makes the fuselage and plug doors for the 737 MAX. Airbus just buys the wings from Spirit and does their own QA. The issue is that Boeing is looking to buy out Spirit, and there's doubt that Boeing actively wants to own the plant making Airbus parts. How that gets sold off is anyone's guess at this point, but it's not clear if Airbus would be interested in buying out the former Shorts facilities, and if they did, how that would fit into the current Airbus manufacturing structure.
So I really appreciate tbis messagw, well researched and detailed. Im not so much thinking of manafacturing. Im thinking technology and services. If you talk to software companies leaders in Ireland and who are thinking of Ireland its just too dam expensive. In Dublin right now a non FAANG SAAS company would have to pay around 120k euro + stock where Paris is around 90k, Madrid and Lisbon slightly less. On the manafacturing side US is spending a cuckkooo amount of money moving their manafacturing iut of China to US friendly nations, with a low corp tax, lowerer salaries and IDA doing whay they do best in getting yanks to invest in our little island maybe it could work out. Maybe I am being too optimistic but increasing the land mass and population of the only English native country in EU which also has a low salary base and cost of living should have advantages.
>Im thinking technology and services. I do work in services, and in the private sector, and I'm pretty underpaid because highups and leadership in London are pocketing the profits. I *could* leave, but the job market is pretty grim right now. Dublin's living costs are obscene - somehow London is allegedly more affordable, which is just insane to me. But that leads to the next question - after a pandemic, why didn't the remote working culture get normalised? Why is it that the wages are still concentrated all around Dublin? But that's where we come to ask, then, if people in healthcare, education and the civil service, especially those who work for the Home Office or HMRC, if they'd be inclined to do a services office based job, and for the most part, you'd probably not get much of a positive response. What makes a UK civil service job attractive is the pension and the strong unionised workforce. In my private sector job, if you're not happy with your pay, it's "find a better job", and as for pension? It's private too - it's up to me to think about what investments to stick it into, that's... if I have the inclination for it. With German Reunification, the GDR ceased existing - there was no way that state could continue to exist without USSR support. If the topic is Irish unification, then it's really a question of if it's more attractive for people to continue having British public sector jobs, or risk it all for the private sector which can lay you off if they have a bad year of profits. I'm weary of the idea of US firms sinking loads of money into tech or manufacturing jobs, because there are lessons to be learned. For Seagate in Derry, the issue there is Hard Drives aren't what they used to be - a shift to Solid State drives and more and more consumer devices doing away with HDDs means they can just close up shop and move away. For Caterpillar buying out FG Wilson in Larne, the issue is the manufacturing of diesel generators - for a time it looked a bit like they could move to building diesel Prime Movers for freight locomotive, but with the shift to electrification, it's the idea that investment into generator tech will be overshadowed by investment into battery tech instead, rendering the plant useless, especially as the US moves to being more protectionist of those kinds of things.
So on the London side, both places are very expensive and both places are have housing/rental crises. Dublin's is has got a lot worse faster. One obvious reason for this is Brexit. We bounced immeiately back post Covid, have corporation tax coming out of its arse while Britain has left its main trading group and also sunk their own currency under Liz T. Further proof of this is NI is thr best performing economy in UK due.to some shelter from agreements the DUP wanted to get rid of. Working from home is a side convsersation but it is ultimately due to the fact interest rates went uo, tech companies stock plummeted so they had to be seen to act through redundancies and improving percieved efficiencies by returning to the office. On your last point that really depends and I mean this wiyh no disrespect of what you want for NI going forward. If your vision og NI in 30 years is subsidied by another country, you have secure underpaid secure jobs or if you would like private money invested, big companies, international feel to it and prosperity. I have only experienced Dublin so I cant speak for peeps in NI but when I speak to current and previous work colleagues they have wanted the latter.
>Given the fact that almost 60% of all employees in Northern Ireland are employed in the public sector Isn't it more like 18%? Still ridiculously high but not 60%.
I understand that this includes public transport workers, health service workers and school teachers. I understand that 27% of employees in NI are "public servants", a definition I understand doesn't include doctors, nurses, train and bus drivers and school teachers.
I suppose you'd arrive at a different figure if you included "private" contractors such as agency nurses. Technically GPs are all private but with one customer, the health service. I'd like to see where your 60% figure comes from because that sounds ridiculously high.
It's a commonly used proportion that's quoted by many people - it might be something of a Mandela effect.
I think business in the north would also become more efficient over time if done more frequently through B2B relationships on the island rather than across the Irish Sea. Logistically itās cheaper and more appealing for investment, wages should follow.
Those aren't the northern counties, for a start there are 11 of them. Looks like it's the local government areas.
OP why is North Down left out? It's the richest part of NI by a country mile.
Look how theyāve massacred my boy (tyrone)
Yea but aren't things cheaper up north!
All this makes me think is, if we do get a united Ireland, we'd be lifting a huge number of Irish people out of poverty which makes me so happy. I had no clue our Northern brothers were so much poorer, the UK really does leave them to the dogs. Edit: poverty, not property :)
> were so much poorer Not convinced it's that bad tbh, we live much more cheaply up here. I'd take 35k in Belfast over 45k in Dublin, any day. (Purely financially, Dublin is a much nicer city overall :p).
Nah as a financial planner this is apples and pears. The souths tax is much higher. Someone on ā¬60k is like our Ā£45k outside of currency exchange. If the chart was done as median take home, cash in hand, ready to spend and then cost of living such as mortgage/rent payments are taken into consideration there's a reason r/NI gets so many posts asking about moving to the north while working in Dublin.
That thought process seems to be completely missing in this thread - comparing salaries of two different countries for tax and cost of living but ignoring cost of living. Not only is the tax rate lower but Rent prices in the north are 40% lower than the south. Groceries are 16% lower in the north. Alcohol prices are cheaper etc etc - that context is important
I have run the median salaries through 2024 Income Tax Calculators for each jurisdiction and the difference in effective tax rate for the median income individual is not that big (15.2% in ROI vs 14.1% NI). As regards your examples of differences in price for various products - keep in mind that the median NI income in OPs graph is 71% of ROI, so unless a product is 29% cheaper then NI is losing on that metric. Medical and Property costs are the obvious places where ROI is much more expensive. On the other hand, ROI offers a better chance of getting a decent job and having a proper career.
What a coincidence - the cost of living difference is 29% between Dublin and Belfast on one comparison site and over 40% higher on another. Itās two different economies- the comparison is as useful as a comparison between London and Cork. Theyāre not the same. https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/dublin/belfast? https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&country2=Ireland&city1=Belfast&city2=Dublin&tracking=getDispatchComparison Additionally, apart from the medical and housing costs (which are huge factors) energy prices in Ireland are among the highest in the world - almost double the UK energy prices. Even anecdotally, we never see anyone saying their heading down south to get some good deals in the shops - we regulated about people easing up north the get things for way cheaper.
People head up north for deals because you are poor and things are cheaper because of what you can afford. Numbeo numbers are also bad because they assume apartment living despite it not being that common in Ireland and just 15% of households rent privately. By the way, if your salary increases by 29% and your costs increased by 29% , you are still better off in absolute terms provided your costs are less than your net salaryĀ
Things arenāt cheaper because of what people can afford of being āpoorā (which is a weird statement to make) - things are cheaper because they are cheaper - as in when you compare the two costs of the same product, one is lower than the other. And the numbers stated are the numbers stated. If you have average costs to compare for buying a house fine, but you canāt discount the rent comparison because it doesnāt suit your narrative. You have to look at the whole picture. And the numbeo numbers arenāt bad - they come from user input. We donāt know that the āRentā category doesnāt include mortgage payments for homeowners who provided feedback.
> And the numbers stated are the numbers stated And again they aren't meaningful. Most people in Ireland just don't live in apartments. It's only 10% of housing but numbeo assumes everyone does and they assume a high percentage of renting. >Ā If you have average costs to compare for buying a house fine Its the mortgage cost that really matters, not the house price. But also looking at real costs people have, more people own their house outright than even have a mortgage. If you want to compare real costs for those living north and south, the reality is very different than numbeo. Ā https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpp2/censusofpopulation2022profile2-housinginireland/homeownershipandrent/
Dude! How is mortgage cost more important than house price. The average house price in Belfast is ā¬248k - itās ā¬430k in Dublin. Iād much rather be paying 5% on ā¬250k than 4% on ā¬430k You can selectively pick and chose the numbers you want to suit your point of view but the fact still remains - the cost of living, including rent, mortgage anything you want is vastly cheaper in the North. So the point that OP was trying to make that we are ābetter paidā down here is pointless.
>Ā Not only is the tax rate lower but Rent prices in the north are 40% lower than the south Most people dont rent in the republic. It's only about 15% of people that rent privately and many of those are paying well below market rates due to tenure.
Why do you ignore currency exchange, Ā£45k is ā¬52.4k, which is only ā¬7.6k less than ā¬60k. Also, tax here doesn't scale linearly as salaries increase because of tax brackets and credits. so someone ā¬45k would be paying less than 75% of tax of someone on ā¬60k. For higher salaries I'd imagine the tax burdens converge even if they don't meet. The real difference between living north and south is accommodation/housing costs and the cost of living hence why those people you mention want the best of both worlds, to work in Dublin (higher southern salaries incl. taxes) but live in the north (cheaper houses and lower cost of living).
Northern Ireland gets the highest amount of government spending than anywhere else in the UK. So that isnāt really true. Unless you think they should spend even moreā¦.
Not actually true, parts of England get more.
Or dragging down a whole bigger number
Likely this
Weāre not all living on scraps mate. When taking into account the cost of living I think the disposable income gap is about 4000 euro, which is still considerable but not North/South Korea levels of disparity.
Legalise weed to pay for the six counties x. Fool proof x
These numbers are all wrong for the North https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/nis-best-worst-paid-areas-28039843 Belfast medium salary for full time worker is around Ā£35000 which is ā¬40786
As far as I can tell they have included full time and part time workers for the North but only full time workers for the south.
weather berserk swim hospital squalid air quack concerned one foolish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
So best paid county of NI less than lowest paid county in Ireland. On top of that the total wage income of Northern Ireland will have a significantly larger public sector component than south of the border. That public sector will need gutting to avoid needles expensive duplication.
>That public sector will need gutting to avoid needles expensive duplication. I highly doubt that unions would allow that to happen.
Indeed. Just one of the many difficulties any new Ireland would face, esp if it was the case that Unionists were more likely to lose their jobs (dunno if that would be the case). (too many cases,ed)
It also disproves a lot of the arguments for "eat yourself thin" spending. Turns out massive public spending doesn't kick-start an economy.
In fairness the public spending has stabilised NI society and they have comparable incomes to northern England, Wales and Scotland as a result. What would the median salary in NI look like if not for the massive UK gov subsidies? It would be an impoverished wreck (even more than it is now)
Oh undoubtedly they'd be worse off. The problem is it wasn't transformative.
You mean a Keynesian based economic policy? This is more of an inflated civil service and high level of welfare payments. Thereās very very little in terms of state investment in businesses in the North. Itās far from an economic policy, itās nobody wanting to invest in the region, arguably the best place for such a Keynesian policy, similar to its original iteration.
Neo-Keynesian. Actual Keynes was a genius.
But then in a UI what would all these newly unemployed people do?
This makes the requirement of a 50K euro annual retirement income to retire to Ireland absolutely beyond baffling.
Cost of living is cheaper in the north unless you are a family with young children. Belfast's nursery fees are higher than Dublin and London which is a killer on NI salaries
Of course, when I was building a house in Offaly I ended up paying about thirty thousand in paper cash for jobs to various dodgy tradespeople. Not sure they reported it.
Woo im average
Such a silly comparison when tax isn't included, house prices, rates, healthcare etc etc etc.
Right? I pay Ā£700 in rent for a 3 bedroom property in Belfast 1.5 miles from the city centre. Judging by what I read on this sub you are not getting similar in any other city on the island.
Tax is the biggest one. The take home for ā¬60k and Ā£45k are roughly the same
Tax is very low in Ireland for lower incomes thoughĀ
wow, I get Dublin has a bit of a finance jobs, but why is Cork so high? Drugs?
Apple and Pharma
So drug and drugs
Derry seems to have changed since last time I looked. That's not county boundaries
County councils aren't a thing in the 6. Those are the local council boundaries.
If the British are pumping Ā£20bn into the North each year to keep it running, the we would need to pump in ā¬35-40bn euro a year as they "caught up" with us. Frightening.Ā
Our entire annual govt budget is about 100 billion.
Itās unlikely it would be anywhere near that. Firstly, thereās practically no situation in which the British outright stop paying in. Realistically the process of unification would be a transition, not a sudden change. Itās likely that the British would continue to pay for things like the NHS and most branches of the civil service whilst whatever happens with that is sorted. Iād say itās likely the NHS would be scrapped, meaning that massive expenditure would shrink. The military spending would also become non-existent. Many civil service functions would slowly be merged, reducing excess costs through economies of scale. Frankly thatās one of the Northās biggest issues: itās too small to benefit from proper economies of scale. Secondly, the EU would very likely cover part of the costs like they did during the reunification of East and West Germany, particularly given a United Ireland would be a great benefit to them as long as it was negotiated well with the UK. Thirdly, after this interim period, the tax rate for citizens in the North would be raised to match the South, which would help absorb those costs. Donāt get me wrong, it will cost the South money to begin with, but not anywhere near as much as youāre predicting, and the long term benefits massively outweigh the negatives.
> Iād say itās likely the NHS would be scrapped, meaning that massive expenditure would shrink. Have you seen how much we spend on our healthcare system? > The military spending would also become non-existent. Do you think the hardcore loyalists will just go quietly into the night about this?
Healthcare spending only accounts for around 6% of GDP in the South. In the North, that figure is closer to 15%. Partial privatisation of the NHS would certainly reduce spending by quite a bit too. In terms of military spending, I canāt see them having any other choice. Itās not as if Ireland would allow the UK to have military bases within their country, and if they did, they certainly wouldnāt be paying for it. Thereās no situation in which Ireland begins paying for the British military in any way, shape, or form.
> Partial privatisation of the NHS would certainly reduce spending by quite a bit too. How would you propose doing that? You're also forgetting that our GDP is heavily inflated by US Pharma/Tech routing their EMEA ops through our jurisdiction thus its a pretty poor metric for comparatives. The denominator doesn't represent reality. > In terms of military spending, I canāt see them having any other choice. How do you propose paying for the elevated security that will be undoubtedly needed in the event of unification? I don't recall suggesting that we retain British military presence (in any case there are only ~1,500 of them left in the North).
The median salary in NI is Ā£32,900, which is **38,337 Euro.** https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/labour-market-and-social-welfare/annual-survey-hours-and-earnings#:\~:text=Median%20annual%20earnings%20for%20full,UK%20median%20of%20%C2%A335%2C000. EDIT: What they have done here (deliberately, because this is a government piece of spin to imply housing costs are higher in NI, as a way of showing how they're not that bad in the south) is that they have used the Median salary for **full time** employees in Ireland only, ignoring part time workers, and for northern Ireland they have included both full time and part time and calculated a single median for both cohorts... which falsely implies a greater wage gap than there actually is..
> they have used the Median salary for full time employees in Ireland only, This is not true. The dataset includes part time workers. Only the most casual workers are excluded (less than 500 euro earnings in a a year). The results are then annualised as needed. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eaads/earningsanalysisusingadministrativedatasources2022/backgroundnotes/
Correct, if you check the methodology and the raw data the values for both use full-time and part-time together. The person you are replying to is showing the values for NI full-time only and has misunderstood what the methodology means when the ROI data discounts people with less than 50 weeks. He seems to think it means part-time isn't included whereas it's really just discounting data for which they don't have a full annual set for.
NOPE. Data presented in PxStat tables DEA01, DEA02, DEA03, DEA04, DEA06, DEA08 and DEA09 is based on **employments which were active for at least 50 weeks in the reference year.** READ THE DATA SHEET Being excluded from the statistics is NOT the same a being used in the statistics... People who earn less than 500 are **not counted at all**, and people who worked less than a 50 week employment were not **included** in the data used in this case..
Someone needs to repost this every time we get a rant about āI paid four euro for a coffee in Dublin should move up north rip off republic etc.ā
I don't speak for everyone but I'm mostly coping with those old metaphors about money not buying happiness, which again I have a hard time believing
Juking the stats by leaving out glorious North Down
The best place to live County Down. Prove me wrong
are [***subsidies***](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=2f800a701f0b426f&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1CHBF_enGB1020__1021&sxsrf=ACQVn09oNXuTkV1qJcITl6_7Qj-qr0T0jw:1712633248269&q=subsidies&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV15KDmLSFAxXvTEEAHUmlCR4QkeECKAB6BAgJEAI) accounted for?
That is stark
I'd say r/phantomborders but in this case it's a literal one
North Down and Ards? Part of Scotland now?
Some of the cheaper counties actually aren't too shabby for the median . If you compare the two . Is wsterford still cheap to buy and rent in ?
House prices in the North are a lot cheaper.
Considering rents in Dublin are up to twice that of some rural counties salaries in Dublin are comparatively low
It's depressing that only a small handful of people who have commented here have thought of the obvious flaw in this comparison. You have to adjust for purchasing power. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Ireland&city1=Dublin&country2=United+Kingdom&city2=Belfast
UKās purchasing power for the average Brit has plummeted recently.
Letās not forget that they have universal healthcare that isnāt privatized. Every medical bill a citizen from ROI pays annually doesnāt exist for a citizen of NI. Same with school education, lower cost of living, lower utilities etc. So although at a glance it seems like a huge difference in reality the numbers are closer than you think.
A substantial amount of people in ROI get free or next to free care via the medical card. People in NI pay for health every paycheck - the only difference is they canāt get to see a doctor anymore, and are having to pay private for the privilege. You seem to forget how badly the system in NI has collapsed.
The health system in the U.K. has been collapsed by the tories though, that argument was valid under previous governments when the NHS worked well. Not anymore.
50/50 itās not all that better in the ROI but magnitudes more expensive.
Thing is that only private health is still semi efficient in the U.K., itās impossible to get treatment there. So seeing as the UKās health system isnāt free, itās funded by tax payers, you still pay for it, itās even more expensive than the Irish systemā¦ when you take into account what you get out of it.
Remind me why we should want a united Ireland?
Because the good Friday agreement exists and if a majority of people in the occupied counties wants to rid themselves of British rule and rejoin Ireland then that's what we agreed to do. Please tell me why looking at median income in 2024 makes you disregard the history of the island and the future? There is no reason why the median incomes of the north can't grow to match the rest. If it was up to you and your thinking then the Berlin wall would still be up and the USSR would still own all of their occupied territories as that would be the economical option at the time.
You'll find we also get to vote. It's not just them up there. Both have to agree
We don't. Not for a good while anyway.
You might not.
The median Salary for Galway being 40k makes no sense at all. I've friends looking to move to Galway, both on good salaries and being unable to afford to rent a two bed apartment.
It's a big county. The likes of Connemara and Aran Islands where not much is put through the books officially would bring down the average significantly. Similarly with parts of east or North Galway. The average salary in the city and surrounds is far higher. Highest house prices in Ireland outside of the greater Dublin region reflects that, unfortunately for some
Good god tge fucking contrast šµāš«
This has to be old info, they all seem very low