Mr. Paul Mac Flynn:

We were looking at this area during the pandemic, in particular, and one of the areas in which both the UK and Ireland stand out is with respect to the replacement rates for people who lose their jobs. We stand very far apart from other countries, with the exception of a handful of central and eastern European countries, in respect of the replacement rate we give people when they lose their jobs. Both economies stepped up massively during the pandemic. Both jumped up the league table. That was particularly true of the UK, which is bottom of the league table no matter what metric for replacement income one looks at. That is one area on which we could get some co-operation on reforms, or at least a move in that direction, particularly if there were to be a change of government in the UK.

This seeps into what Senator Blaney said about what happens when Northern Ireland does not work. We cannot divorce what Northern Ireland looks like now from the past ten years of UK fiscal policy. It is a region that is not only dependent on public services but whose private sector is also dependent on that public investment. That was stripped away for many years and the blame for that cannot be levelled at Northern Ireland. We have to imagine that in the short to medium term, there will be some relief for Northern Ireland in that regard. That would make co-operation in some of those areas more realistic. At the moment, some of the differences are so stark that it is not realistic to talk about joining the two together.