What would be the economic costs and benefits of a united Ireland?
Agenda: The subvention argument tends to view the North as a deadweight, a financial burden to be shouldered by whatever entity follows
Traffic crossing the Border near Derry. Brexit provisions afford the North the unique advantage of being simultaneously in the UK and in EU’s single market when it comes to trade in goods. Photograph: Getty Images
Brexit, the controversies around the Northern Ireland Protocol and the possibility of Scottish independence and the eventual break-up of the UK have raised the political temperature in the UK and Ireland. They have also raised the prospect of a Border poll on a united Ireland, something that wasn’t on the political agenda prior to Brexit.
There are, of course, a number of complex political hurdles to be negotiated before such a vote could take place. Nonetheless it has prompted renewed debate and research into the economic cost, or benefit, of a united Ireland.