Mr. Michael Burke:

Several questions were specifically directed to me on the benefits of reunification reforms and the GDP and gross value added, GVA, data. The presentation document I have provided includes a table. The North's economic output is approximately £30 billion per annum, while the economic output of Ireland is approximately €180 billion. If they are converted to a common currency, the Northern economy is approximately one quarter of the size of this economy. I would expect both to rise significantly with unification, simply from the process of unification. The Border region provides a very good example of this. It is as if we have a railway going nowhere. We have a series of what should be natural links between the two economies, because they should be one economy, but they are stunted and have atrophied because there is a stopping point. The point on tourism was very well made, but in my view it applies across the board.

The quantification of the benefits of unification is a somewhat tricky calculation. My view is that, at a minimum, based on growth in the home market and the size of the market in the North, which is 25% of what it is here, at least half of the benefits would apply to living standards for all of the population of this economy.

That is not a fixed sum in the sense that the Northern Ireland economy would not be static or even grow at the same rate as this economy. It would grow faster for a considerable period as it caught up and, therefore, at a minimum, living standards would increase by approximately 12.5% simply through the process of reunification.

In terms of reforms, the obvious one to suggest would be to get rid of the Border. In the absence of that, the obvious no cost reform is for the governments and the agencies to be instructed to collaborate with each other to improve the living standards of people across the entire island, that is, to stop whatever it is that prevents them from working together such as turf wars or a dislike of the cut of people's jib and so on and to get on and do the job they are tasked with in terms of improving living standards. People are not asked to do things like Tourism Ireland for the fun of it. They are supposed to be there to produce an increase in tourism across the island of Ireland.

With regard to the longer-term picture, all the benefits increase massively with investment. That should be plain. The enormous increase in living standards that has taken place in this jurisdiction relative to both the North and Britain, the former power here, was a long process but it accelerated with the arrival of European investment in the 1980s and 1990s. The level of investment accelerates the growth of an economy. I would suggest all the types of obvious infrastructure development that one would expect. The three keys areas include major investment in rail transport across the island. I would invest significantly in broadband, which has been mentioned and I would invest heavily in a unified education system because these three actions would allow the unified economy to grow rapidly.