Professor John Doyle:

There is no basis for that statement. If the Exchequer in the South had to come up with €20 billion next Monday then of course that would be very challenging, to say the least, and it would have major inflationary impacts in Northern Ireland. Where would people spend €20 billion if it was suddenly landed into the middle of an economy without planning or a sense of what you would spend it on, with most of it put in as a straight transfer? It is just not real in terms of that impact. My figures suggest a year one estimate, if it happened now, allowing for a modest investment of around €1 billion a year of additional expenditure and inheriting bits of subvention that would transfer, would be about €2.5 billion. That is three quarters of 1% of GNI in a context in which Ireland's debt to GDP ratio would fall because if there is no deal on pensions, we would not inherit debt. We already have good GDP. We can borrow relatively cheaply on the international markets at the moment. It would make little or no impact on the economy in the south to borrow at the level of three quarters of 1% to fund the short-term deficit. We must then look at the political decisions Dr. Bergin talked about, including what you want to do in years two, three and four. That is where the Green Paper comes in. That would allow you to say that we want a university in Derry of a particular size, that we want the further education sector to be larger and that we want free GP coverage for everybody or for 90% of the population available more quickly than 16 days, which, I think, is the latest average across the UK. Then, you can put prices on those sorts of things which go beyond the deficit. The notion that it is €20 billion before you make a single decision and that would therefore collapse the economy in the South has no basis.