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Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Fergus O'Dowd: We are engaging with Professors John FitzGerald and Edgar Morgenroth today. I thank them for their patience before the meeting started. We are continuing our discussion of the Northern Ireland economy in respect of problems and prospects. On behalf of the committee, I welcome the witnesses to the meeting. I will now read the following in respect of privilege. The evidence of witnesses...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: Over the past few months, a number of writers have raised questions about comparative standards of living in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK so we thought we would say a few words on that. In recent years all official bodies in Ireland have come to use adjusted gross national income, GNI*, when comparing output and income in Ireland with other countries and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor Edgar Morgenroth: As with the last time, Professor FitzGerald made the statement on behalf of both of us.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: I am not sure whether Senator McGahon is here but if he is, I will leave time for him. I thank Professor FitzGerald and Professor Morgenroth for coming before us, it is great to have their participation. I am glad Professor FitzGerald said he would not read out the tables. The scale of the financial information is huge and the witnesses might forgive me as I try to pick through it....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: As for evidence, Northern Ireland's top academic economist, Professor Vani Borooah, published a book in 2015 in which he did a very detailed analysis. I found it very instructive. It shows that, because kids from a working-class background, in Belfast, for example, get selected for secondary schools and do not get into grammar schools, they have poor educational...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: Would Professor Morgenroth would like to say something about infrastructure?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: It depends on how much subvention would be needed for Northern Ireland. In our estimation it would still be substantial. Funding substantial subvention would require either higher taxes or lower expenditure in the Republic in the absence of Northern Ireland raising its productivity. In the long term, if Northern Ireland tackles the problems of low productivity,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Professor FitzGerald states that even in circumstances of having taken urgent action on productivity measures, such as in education, we expect that the problem of productivity would remain for at least 25 years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: We began investing in education around 1970 with a major ramping up, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. We kept children in school until 16 years of age and they continued on to do the leaving certificate and to go on to university. However, it takes a long time to replace my generation who did not have that opportunity. The effects of education take a very...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Ms Michelle Gildernew: My sound is not great so I apologise for any difficulties. It is very interesting to hear Professor FitzGerald's thoughts. At a committee in Stormont in the region of 20 years ago, the economist John Simpson talked about how there were children in the vicinity of Stormont, only a few miles down the road, who at five, six, and seven years old were no longer suitable...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: I listened to colleagues of Ms Gildernew regarding the subvention and I took account of it. The excess expenditure on defence, to which Northern Ireland contributes, probably accounts for the best part of £1 billion of the subvention. However, even in 2018, if Northern Ireland had been part of the Republic of Ireland, the EU subvention would have been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

...but that is simply a cost of Brexit. There is not very much room around this. We can apply the rules a little differently but the rules will have to be there. On corporation tax, Professor Fitzgerald might want to come in. Again, it is a big issue.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: On corporation tax, briefly, the Republic is at risk from changes in US tax law. Northern Ireland's T. K. Whittaker, Sir George Quigley, who was hugely impressive, argued for a low corporation tax rate for the North. I felt he had missed the boat. A low corporation tax rate could have attracted jobs in the 1980s, but by 2000 it was not about jobs but just about...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Brendan Smith: Thank you, Chairman. My colleague, Senator Blaney, is trying to connect to the meeting. I welcome the contributions of Professors FitzGerald and Morgenroth. It is great to have them with us for this discussion. Professor FitzGerald gave a very impressive statistic on early school-leavers and the success we have had in this State in reducing considerably the percentage of pupils who leave...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Erin McGreehan: I welcome the witnesses. As a student of Professor FitzGerald for many years, it is great to see him at this committee. For me, as an Irish republican, this is not about the costs of reunification. This topic is like deciding when is the right time to have children in that we will say it is never the right time. In this case, we must work towards that goal and create the best possible...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: I am reluctant to prescribe new institutions. When considering institutional change, we should look to the HSE or look to the movement of responsibility for climate change from the Custom House to Adelaide Road. I am reluctant to go down that route. While we would all like to see institutions across the Border, I will leave it to the politicians to solve that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Brendan Smith: Both Professor FitzGerald and Professor Morgenroth referred to the fact that students who leave the likes of Cavan, Monaghan and other rural counties and go to college in Dublin, Cork, Galway or wherever do not, by and large, return to the areas where they came from. Could there be merit in more third level courses being delivered locally through the colleges of further education? Sadly,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: The ESRI carried out research on this 20 years ago, in particular in the Gaeltacht areas, where people were leaving and not coming back. It turned out that because they were highly educated, the jobs they wanted were jobs that were available in urban areas. Services jobs occur in urban areas, so if people get an education and want those kinds of jobs, where they...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: Does Professor Morgenroth wish to speak about Brexit first?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: The Northern Ireland Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Professor John FitzGerald: On governance, it would be interesting for the committee to have a session on what the Republic could learn from Northern Ireland because there are things it could learn. In 2005, I met Mr. Michael Brennan, the then head of the economic service of Northern Ireland's civil service. He had 120 economists. Our Department of Finance was getting rid of its...