Quality of life is much the same North and South, although we tend to arrive at our similar outcomes through different ways.
That is a rough summary of the first full research report from the Shared Island Initiative, launched by Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Monday.
Both parts of Ireland have similar figures on income inequality, for example, but Northern Ireland achieves this more through its benefit system and the Republic more through its tax system. Housing consumes around one-fifth of disposable income in both jurisdictions, representing a great cancelling out of multiple factors. Health services on either side of the Border deliver the same levels of primary and secondary care. However, unmet demand in the North is more about long waits, while in the South it is more about high costs.
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Headlines are made by dramatic differences, not similarities, on closer inspection, so the lack of interest in Monday’s announcement is unsurprising. But the record of the Shared Island Initiative is that what starts off dry as dust and condemned by some nationalists for lacking ambition, can then slowly and subtly transform attitudes in ways nationalism has never managed.
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When the initiative was established in 2020, it commissioned the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) to examine policy differences and the potential for co-operation across the island. Monday’s report is an overarching summary of the programme so far.
A step change in this work was promised in last November’s Fianna Fáil manifesto and adopted in the Coalition’s programme for government. It mandates commissioning “a North-South statistical series and publication to provide comparable data on economic activity, public expenditure and wider social and economic measures, including education, housing and health outcomes”.
Monday’s report is the start of this new era of authoritative, comparative data. How much authority it acquires remains to be seen – none of this is a precise science – but it has been given the imprimatur of the Taoiseach’s office.
The stated purpose of the data is not to support any constitutional argument, heaven forbid. It serves two official objectives: learning from policy differences either side of the border; and analysing the extent and potential of cross-Border co-operation.
Policy differences are to be studied for useful insight, rather than with any political goal of harmonisation. The ESRI report explains that there is more to learn from your immediate neighbours simply because their experience is more likely to be relevant. It mentions comparative studies between “the four parts of the UK” as an example.
When the United Kingdom embarked on devolution three decades ago, there were hopes it would function as a policy laboratory, with regions learning from each other’s different approaches to practical problems. Instead, devolution has become a platform for constitutional arguments, while public services are neglected. The devolved administrations pay scant attention to each other and Westminster believes it has little to learn from any of them. It would be quite an achievement, and quite an irony, if both parts of Ireland did better than the UK at making the policy laboratory work.
The clearest lessons to emerge from the ESRI report are that Northern Ireland needs to improve its further education and training. Although children reach the end of school with similar skill levels North and South, too many northerners then leave education with few or no qualifications. Comparison with the Republic reveals the extent to which a handful of poor policy choices are throwing human potential away.
On cross-Border co-operation, the second subject of the report’s analysis, the revelation is how little of it takes place. Collaboration on healthcare is mainly confined to specialist initiatives in Border areas. Just 0.6 per cent of students at southern universities are from the North, with a 2.4 per cent figure in the opposite direction.
Tourism and energy are the only sectors where all-Ireland co-operation has developed at a significant, strategic level, yet only tourism has the benefit of dedicated North-South structures under the Belfast Agreement. The all-Ireland energy market owes its success to private investment in a highly regulated market. There are other cases where regulation gets in the way, such as the taxation of cross-Border workers. So, although there is plenty of potential for further co-operation, it is not as straightforward as tends to be imagined, or as the Belfast Agreement may appear to envisage.
While that will hardly be news to any informed observer, they are now better informed with official facts and figures. Taking ownership of the facts away from unreliable partisans is how a dry report can begin to slowly and subtly transform attitudes. It is easier to have a serious debate on where Northern Ireland and the Republic are going when there is agreement on where they are today. Not that the Shared Island Initiative has any particular destination in mind, of course. Heaven forbid.
