Professor Stephen Roper:

I am grateful for an easy question. The UK economy as a whole will be facing a period of marked uncertainty over the next couple of years. As Paul Mac Flynn has suggested, that will affect the UK's ability to attract new investment and the willingness of UK business to invest in certain situations. However, it is also worth saying that Northern Ireland is the least connected of the UK regions to Europe in terms of trade. The southern regions of England are much more strongly connected. The implication, therefore, is that if the UK were to leave the EU, any potential downside which may arise is unlikely to have quite the impact on Northern Ireland that it would have perhaps on southern regions of England. This is to take a downside view. Of course one might argue that we could end up in a kind of Norwegian situation, in which case it is probable the benefits on the upside would also be less in the case of Northern Ireland. In a sense, the vulnerability of Northern Ireland to the UK's leaving the EU is probably slightly less than that which might occur and the potential upside effects are probably slightly smaller than in southern parts of England.