Mayo analysis: 'A united Ireland' is clearly on the back burner now
by Caoimhín Rowland
AMIDST a myriad of crises, including the cost of living, housing and health, Irish society today appears far less focused on dreams of a united Ireland than it was in the years immediately following the UK’s Brexit vote.
Sinn Féin, however, will expectedly continue to pound the drum of reunification, but voters seem increasingly disinterested in any concrete plans for a united Ireland.
Young people, the very generation expected to carry Ireland into reunification ‘in their lifetime’, seem nonplussed.
This, despite a cultural moment where Kneecap is at the cutting edge of cool, the Wolfe Tones are drawing record crowds at Electric Picnic and the Irish language is undergoing a middle-class revival. Support for a united Ireland would be surging, but this is far from reality.
A recent Ireland Thinks poll asked voters in the Republic to name the most pressing societal issues.
A united Ireland came in at a measly 1%, compared to 51% for housing, 26% for cost of living, and 24% for immigration.
Irish society is far less concerned about etching Robert Emmet’s epitaph than they are about securing basic shelter.
But it’s part of a wider malaise, a skidding halt to what once felt like an inevitable Irish reunification.
One sector that knows demand all too well is housing. An increased desire among a growing population to own, rent or live in Ireland should be positive.
But sky-high costs are placing a severe burden on the population.
As the poll shows, over half of the respondents believe housing should be the government’s top priority.
Yet every government intervention intended to ease the crisis seems only to make things worse.
Take the Help-to-Buy scheme. Many government backbenchers now want it extended to second homes, much to the annoyance of the Central Bank and leading economists - they say it would inflate housing prices even further and stall new home builds.
Even innovative schemes like Croí Conaithe or rent pressure zones look great on paper.
But in practice, amidst record-high prices, it's clear these policies benefit sellers, auctioneers and landlords more than the average person hoping to buy or rent at a reasonable rate.
We’ve all seen the Daft listings, a cattle shed in Ballygonowhere with three stone walls still standing and a rusted corrugated roof caved in after decades of West of Ireland winters. Basically just a site. But tack on the vacant property grant and suddenly there’s €70,000 added to the asking price.
Imagine the salivating sellers when a help to buy grant can be added also?
Where don’t they have a housing crisis, you ask? Well, in Northern Ireland, housing ranks much lower on the public’s priority list.
According to a Belfast Telegraph poll, when asked to choose their top four issues for Stormont/Westminster to tackle, 71% of respondents picked health, 49% cost of living, 43% jobs and the economy, 32% education, and 25% immigration. Housing ranked just 7th.
Interestingly, 20% chose the union with the UK as a priority, 14% supported unification with Ireland, and 9% wanted focus on a border poll.
Granted, the two polls differ, Sunday Independent respondents chose only two issues, while Northern Irish respondents picked four but we can still glean that despite sharing an island, our priorities diverge sharply.
Few in the Republic today struggle to find a job. And though it may be hard to believe, health has been slipping down the priority list here for quite sometime. Take the recent general election. Besides disability, health ranked low in discussions.
A rising level of private health insurance has been flagged as one possible reason.
That old chestnut, “Would they want to give up their NHS to reunify?” rings hollow now. If Northern Irish doctors coming to Dublin for weekend shifts wasn’t enough of an answer, these polls offer a clearer picture - not everyone in the North would prefer the NHS over the HSE.
Understandably, questions about the future dominate more in the North.
Their Assembly is notorious for dysfunction, their economy too small to wield real influence and the Windsor Agreement proved what many already suspected, even Northern Ireland’s most loyal unionists must admit that London doesn’t care deeply for Belfast.
Still, if only there were a way to help each other.
Perhaps we could lend them our health service in exchange for some builders, tradespeople and, God willing, a few affordable homes down south.
Now what would that be called?