Leo Varadkar will travel to Northern Ireland today for a series of meetings that are likely to be tense. Relations between the taoiseach and Ulster Unionists, and indeed the British government, are more strained than at any time over the past 25 years or possibly longer.
Brexit presents one of the biggest political and economic challenges for this country in decades. The government can feel rightly aggrieved at the lack of detail so far provided by the British government.
There was more than a hint of frustration when the taoiseach said last week that the government would not help Brexiteers design an economic border on the island of Ireland. It was inevitable that there would be a backlash from Unionists, particularly the Democratic Unionist Party, which campaigned for Brexit.
During the week, Mr Varadkar said that he hoped Brexit would not happen or at the very least, Britain would stay in the customs union and the single market. This was then followed by an Oireachtas report, published on Wednesday, which said that a poll on reunification was less than a decade away. Unsurprisingly, Unionists reacted angrily to both the report and the comments. The most prudent course of action for the taoiseach would be to build bridges when he is in Northern Ireland. He could start by reassuring Unionists that there will be no attempt to coerce them into a united Ireland.
The Oireachtas report, Brexit and the future of Ireland, said that a united Ireland would provide an economic boost of €35.6 billion over eight years through economies of scale and increased foreign direct investment. Crucially however, the report did not outline the costs of unification. This is one of its main weaknesses and diminishes its overall worth.
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Northern Ireland runs a budget deficit of roughly £9 billion every year. In the event of unification, that would have to be covered by Dublin. To put it in context, in the years immediately after the crisis, the most that was taken out of the economy in tax increases and spending cuts in a single year was €6 billion.
Also, the North already enjoys economies of scale by being part of the fifth largest economy in the world. That is why it is able to offer a health service for free at the point of access. This would have to be unravelled across health, education, security and other sectors before the true cost of unification could be determined. There is no attempt to do so in the report. Furthermore, there is no mention of the North’s share of pension and national debt liabilities that would have to be shouldered by the Irish taxpayer after unification. The Economic and Social Research Institute estimates these could be more than £100 billion.
Besides the considerable economic barriers to unification, there is also the crucially important issue of consent as laid out in the Good Friday agreement. The reality is that according to all recent opinion polls, there is very little support among Unionists for a united Ireland.
It is unfortunate that the Oireachtas report failed to explore many of these points, although it did comprehensively outline the challenges posed by Brexit.
The taoiseach was right to issue an ultimatum last week. There is a huge amount at stake for this country and it was incumbent upon the government to register its discontent at the lack of progress in areas that will have a material impact on the economic wellbeing of this country well into the future.
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But the reality is that Britain is leaving the EU. Mr Varadkar must seek to build a consensus with Unionists on Brexit — if there is a hard Brexit, then the Irish economy will suffer more than Britain.