Michelle O'Neil has said she thinks we'll have a reunification referendum in the next 10 years.

[TooBigForMyBoots]

Is that enough time for Britain to right itself and become sufficiently functional for NI to vote Remain?

In my heart I'd want a United Ireland. In my head I'd want what's best for me and my family.

Atm it seems like NI is the black sheep that noone wants.

We have too many civil servants and appear to keep employing more.

But our health care is truly FUCKED. I think moreso than in GB. We aren't the NHS here, we are run by the HSC (Health and Social Care Department)
Waiting times in A&E are often 18 hrs plus. Bays that were once for beds are now filled with patients on chairs.
New hospitals with single rooms now have 2 sharing and patients in trolleys.
Waiting lists for Rheumatology are 8 years long, Neurology 10 - plus we've had the biggest recall of Neurology patients in history and the Trust involved is covering its arse...again!

I have Dr friends in GB who want to come "home" but feel they can't as they can't face telling patients there is nothing I can do for you for x years.

That's insane waiting times. I wonder why the private system there isn't being used to ease the burden. It seems mad that in Ireland our government is paying for us to go to private hospitals up north while patients up north are waiting 8 years to be seen. I go up to a private hospital there fairly regularly and the car park is always half full of Irish reg plates. It seems crazy that we are all travelling to be seen there but someone down the road from the private hospital could be waiting 8 years for the same care.

Until recently there was a cross border initiative that NI patients waiting iver a certain time period could pay for knee/hip replacements, cataracts etc privately in ROI and claim the majority of it back through the NHS. This ended last year, I wonder will the scheme start up again with the executive in place?

@Farmageddon

"What's the point in a load of upheaval to keep things mostly the same..."

+++

Good point.

The last thing Ireland needs right now is some polarising referendum. We've been through the mill since 2016, only just restored devolved govt in the North, the ROI is about to implode over its virtual open borders policy, and SF are already talking a border poll? Insanity. I think what would heal Ireland right now is a decade or so in which we plod on within our separate jurisdictions and nothing much happens.

I do believe unification will happen eventually; the Protestant population in the North is in chronic decline. Fair enough, but why endanger the very fragile form of govt we have just re-established by antagonising the loyalists, who are on a perpetual hair-trigger as it is?

That's insane waiting times. I wonder why the private system there isn't being used to ease the burden. It seems mad that in Ireland our government is paying for us to go to private hospitals up north while patients up north are waiting 8 years to be seen.

There's finite capacity in the private system. Plus there's been no government for two years to take those decisions and no money to pay for it.