John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This issue was discussed two weeks ago and is in line with Senator Black's point of view. Two weeks ago, we dealt with one report, which was quite substantial in what the authors were saying, whereas now we are dealing with a report that is much more moderate in its outlook. It is incumbent on either the Government or whoever else to come to somewhere in the middle and take some points from one of the reports and other points from the other one, or whatever it may be, but the danger is that, as we said two weeks ago, there is a high probability that a proportion of people within the Republic would not vote for a united Ireland, based on it presenting too great a cost to them. I am happy to vote for a united Ireland regardless of the financial cost, but a chunk of people will make a decision based on that, and that is why it is important that the research of the witnesses, and the points they are putting across today, receive proper consideration because when this debate kicks off, the reality is going to get lost somewhere in the middle. One person might say it is going to cost €20 billion and another might say it will cost €10 billion, and some voters might then say they are not interested in voting for it whatsoever. That is the danger.

Professor Doyle stated Irish unity would be unlikely to lead to any debt transfer from Britain. What would that mean for the key economic metric of debt to GDP or GNI? Gross debt is currently 72% of GNI.