Recently published report estimated cost for unification at €20bn a year for 20 years but this figure is contested
The costs of Irish unification would equal the worst of the effects of the austerity years between 2009 and 2011 and last for considerably longer, the Oireachtas has been warned.would take decades, said economists, John FitzGerald of the Economic and Social Research Institute and Prof Edgar Morgenroth of Dublin City University .
The FitzGerald/Morgenroth report has been criticised by Prof Brendan O’Leary and Prof John Doyle of DCU who argued in an article written for The Irish Times that London would pay share Northern Ireland’s share of the UK debt and continue to pay UK pensions to those already entitled to them living in the North.
Mr FitzGerald and Mr Morgenroth doubted that the European Union would make a significant contribution, bar one-off goodwill contributions, to unification given Ireland’s wealth. Rejecting a pushback from Sinn Féin TD, Ruth Conway Walsh, they insisted that education reforms system would not bring quick gains.
However, reforms would be fiercely opposed by both Catholic and Protestant middle-class parents who benefit hugely at the expense of others, both said.Northern Ireland has to sort that out for itself,” Mr FitzGerald told the Oireachtas Good Friday Agreement committee chaired by Fine Gael TD, Fergus O’Dowd.
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