Ten years after their 2016 “confidence and supply” arrangement and well into their second coalition, that old wariness still lingers between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Not as pervasive as it once was; not as tense. But there all the same.
Maybe that’s not surprising – after all, the two parties have been co-operating for only one decade; they were deadly enemies for nine. And they remain, let us not forget, electoral rivals. Fianna Fáil had the best of it last time out; Fine Gael is determined to turn the tables next time.
So when Simon Harris promised his “blueprint for a unified Ireland” last weekend, the reaction from Fianna Fáilers was pretty much the same as anytime they hear him: “What the f**k is he up to now?”
Fianna Fáilers assumed this was some effort to give Fine Gael an edge over them at the next election. There was lively chatter on the Fianna Fáil Whatsapps, with some abuse directed at Fine Gael and the usual finger-pointing at Micheál Martin, in this instance for insufficient interest in a united Ireland.
But I find any political edge for Fine Gael hard to see here. Sure there are voters who believe that achieving a united Ireland should be a top priority. It’s just there aren’t very many of them, and none of them is going to vote for Fine Gael anyway.
Repeated surveys suggest that a united Ireland is regarded as a priority for between 1 and 2 per cent of voters. For the rest of the electorate in the Republic, a united Ireland is something that about two-thirds are vaguely in favour of, as long as they don’t have to do anything that might actually bring it about.
Harris knows all this well. Not so long ago, he was averring that a united Ireland was “not a priority” for him. Instead, the Government’s flagship cross-Border project is the Shared Island initiative, now in its sixth year, which has seen hundreds of millions of euro spent on projects that emphasise all-island co-operation and knowledge-building. It is very much not an overtly unity-themed project – though you’d have to be blind not to see its unity implications – and has won broad approval from unionists. It is also very much Martin’s baby, though, and widely identified as such. Perhaps this is Harris’s response.
Talking about planning for a united Ireland is easy. Actually planning it is going to be very hard
But what’s in it? Harris promised a “blueprint”. A blueprint is a detailed plan or design that can be followed to make or build something. Harris is promising it by the time of the Fine Gael ardfheis in November. I can tell you that is not going to happen. The issues involved are too vast and too complex to come up with solutions in five or so months.
The best that Harris will manage is to produce a guide to the issues that will need to be considered if unity is to be achieved and – more importantly, this – implemented successfully. Readers might spot that those two things are not the same.
Sources tell me that Prof Deirdre Heenan, whom Fine Gael said would facilitate its work on this, was somewhat surprised to be suddenly cast into a starring role in uniting Ireland by Christmas. She will produce a piece of independent academic research for the party on the next steps that it might consider if it wishes to push forward the united Ireland agenda. Not a blueprint.
The good news for Fine Gael is that there has been a fair amount of thinking about all this over the past decade; the bad news is that we are very far away indeed from a “blueprint”. Mostly what we have had is people calling for “conversations” and for the Government to “plan”. But what would be said in those conversations and what would actually be in those plans are a lot less clear.
For instance, what is the plan for the future constitutional shape of the island if there is to be unity? Should Northern Ireland continue to exist as a devolved entity within a 32-county Ireland, with – either for an interim period or permanently – its own police, justice system, civil service, public services, agencies and local government? Or is it simply to be assimilated into the 26-county State? If the latter – how long does that take?
How much would it cost to unify the two jurisdictions? Or rather: how much will it cost southern taxpayers to take on the significantly weaker economic entity north of the Border? This is most assuredly not an issue where wishful thinking masquerading as analysis will do.
Assuming the inevitable equalisation is upwards – in other words, Northern welfare payments and public sector wages will go up, Southern rates will not go down – how long is the adjustment period? Would the UK pay the North’s pensions? How is all this to be negotiated – and between whom will it be negotiated?
[ Some claims about the cost of a united Ireland don’t stack upOpens in new window ]
All that is before we get to questions of defence, security, identity, flags, anthems and symbols. How much are Irish people prepared to acknowledge the British identity of the unionist minority – and to recognise this in the institutions and practices of the unified state? If you want an idea of how contentious this stuff will be, ask the lads in the pub if they’re ready to join the Commonwealth.
If Harris and the FG brains trust have answers to all of this by November, I’ll bake them a giant hat-shaped cake and distribute slices to everyone at the ardfheis. Talking about planning for a united Ireland is easy. Actually planning it is going to be very hard. That’s not a reason not to do it. But it is a reason to know what you’re getting into.
For more information, see the Irish Times/Arins joint research initiative between the Royal Irish Academy and the University of Notre Dame on Ireland’s future
