To ask Irish & Northern Irish MNers what your views on the DUP/Tory deal are?

[stumblymonkeyagain]

There are a couple of threads knocking around on this topic where people are commenting on the impact on the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Ireland/Northern Ireland.

As an English person I won't pretend to understand the complexities and how it feels to you but wondered if you could share so I have a better understanding of the potential impact from your viewpoint?

Do you think it will impact the GFA?

How are people in Ireland (the island of...) talking about it?

[rockshandy]

Honestly I just cannot continue to engage with a poster who has such open contempt for a country that has repeatedly been failed by the UK government.

The levels of social deprivation, the terrible mental health and the even worse mental health services. The stagnant wages, the low pay job market....

Yet you keep asking why it's taking so long. We are repeatedly pushed down and told to shut up. Our assembly talks were cast aside in favour of Theresa May's own goal. The assembly here has been trying to lower corporation tax for years but gets no where.

But no, definitely the people of NI are the problem.

Christ alive this is sickening.

[TheCraicDealer]

Tell me about it!!!!! Now I live in Lisburn I might need to write a strongly worried letter to Jeffrey Donaldson. He's taken his eye off the ball wrt the real important issues during these discussions

In all seriousness I hope the DUP are brought in on the EU negotiations. Even if it's just to kick the Torres under the table when they start to concede too much.

[rockshandy]

Infrastructure isn't wonderful, public transport/traffic in Dublin is dreadful. Health care is very expensive, education is not to the standard of NI. Housing stock is poor in central Dublin and the surrounding suburbs. Rent is astronomical. Cost of living is sky high.

That is what we should be aspiring to?

[LaurieMarlow]

Tough as it might be to hear, I agree with Silently that NI needs to start taking some responsibility for itself and its recovery. Even if I agree its problems were not initially of its own making.

Yes people have suffered terribly, but that's true of many places across the world. The future is the most important thing to focus on.

For example, living in the South, the entrepreneurial mindset there compared to NI is staggering. When I was educated in NI a government or NHS job was what people aimed at. In the South, they're much more gung ho about setting up on their own, starting their own businesses and working for themselves.

[LaurieMarlow]

That is what we should be aspiring to

Obviously not and you know that wasn't the point I was making. There are lots of problems with big business setting up in ROI. It's not some magical disneyland of potential that means NI can't possibly compete with it.

[rockshandy]

Up thread we were told that ROI has done amazingly well and why hasn't NI.

That is what I was referring to.

But lets remember, NI is part of the UK. And the UK hasn't done as well as other countries since the recession
Because of Tory ideology and austerity.

Yes, NI does need to pull itself up, and in signing the GFA it started to. Tourism is up, NI is attracting filming, there are a lot of positives. We are trying, despite the dinosaur politics and all that has gone before. But either way you look at it, we have an up hill battle and being ignored by the rest of the UK hasn't helped has it?

[DioneTheDiabolist]

NI may need to take responsibility for ourselves, but we won't be taking responsibility for the current debacle in Westminister and the EU and the shower of shite merchants who caused it and are overseeing it.

That's not our fault.

[FlaviaAlbia]

Thinking back to school, don't know anyone who aimed for a government job Laurie. It was seen as low pay and dead end.

There were lots of people who wanted to be doctors of various sorts so I suppose that would mean working for the NHS but it's hardly an easy job...

[rockshandy]

When I think back to school most of the people who wanted to be anything decent left. Canada. Australia. Norway. Dublin.

[LaurieMarlow]

I meant civil service really. Lots of well paid jobs there. In my school, we were all encouraged to be teachers or HCP. And even the few who became lawyers are now mostly public sector.

It's not about the ease of the job Flavie, it's about the fact that the ambitions are all directed to public sector, which ultimately are financed by tax payer funding. Rather than there being much of a start up or entrepreneurial culture. The different really struck me when I moved to ROI.

[LaurieMarlow]

Rockshandy, I think your points are fair enough.

[MrWriter]

Lots of the girls I went to school with went on to be civil servants and HCPs , but most of the fellas I know now work for themselves.
It must be a difference in teaching towards genders.

[NanooCov]

I may be being naive and am prepared to be told so (and apologies if someone has made the point already - scrolling at work) but the text of the deal is very explicit that the money goes to the Executive not the DUP. Yes it will strengthen the DUP'a political position but it's not directly lining their pockets. The text I also very explicit about what the money has to be used for, down to specifically naming infrastructure priorities.

I can't be sorry for the money going to NI - I have friends there who have to still pay for their cancer drugs while in England the NHS meet the cost (although this money will barely touch the sides of that problem) - but it does make my mind boggle at the sheer hypocrisy of the Tories after all their bleating about how Labour's "magic money tree" was so fanciful, etc. Amazing they've found this sum down the back of the sofa for their own ends!

[TheCraicDealer]

With the lack of inward investment during the troubles it's hardly surprising that the public sector was widely looked on as best place to score a secure, well paid job.

[peachgreen]

NI is not the same place as it was five years ago. People who have left don't realise that. My husband was one of them - said he would never come back to NI - but now he has, he's astounded at the change. There IS a start-up culture, there is entrepreneurial spirit, there's a thriving tech sector, the film and TV industry is growing by the day, tourism is rising (funnily enough, it took people a while to feel comfortable enough to start coming back to NI!) etc etc. We ARE "pulling ourselves up" but there are still issues keeping business and tourists away and unfortunately those sorts of infrastructure problems can't be sorted in a decade.

Voting WAS becoming less sectarian. Central parties did better than ever before in the recent Assembly elections. Unfortunately Brexit polarised voting again - and Brexit is a big, big question for Northern Ireland. Eventually these sectarian parties will have to modernise (as Sinn Fein have started to do) or they will lose votes - but while the victims, and the families of the victims, of the Troubles are still alive, people will continue to vote against who they see as the enemy.

It will take time. But we'll get there. And we're already getting there.

[Whosthebestbabainalltheworld]

Living in ROI I'd say the vast majority of people don't want a united Ireland as we couldn't ever afford to pay the subsidies the U.K. Government does to prop up the NI economy, or the hassle and rows that having a united Ireland would bring. It's only Sinn Fein and some ROI pensioners (who hark back to what their forefathers told them about how the brits role our land), who have any interest in a United Ireland. We're more interested in overall Brexit and the impact on ROI trade with the UK. NI is an irrelevance.

[AndTakeYourHorseWithYou]

NI is not the same place as it was five years ago. People who have left don't realise that

Of course we realise that, you think people leave and never visit, never speak to all their family and friends that are still there?

[Dulra]

I am irish from ROI and I think the initial question from op looking for views from roi citizens is wrong it is only a matter of concern for UK citizens. NI is governed by the UK and what funding they get, how money is spent, on what services has absolutely nothing to do with the Republic we are a completely different jurisdiction. Completely different education system currency, health system etc.

How the dup deal will effect the peace process? I don't think it will but I do think a hard border between ni and the Republic due to brexit most definitely will. Brexit and it's impact on Irish trade with the UK (our biggest export market) is our main concern. The dup doing a deal with the tories is completely irrelevant to us

[sashh]

We had no say in Arlene remaining after the RHI scandal broke.

It broke before the general election, but she has been elected.

[PunjanaTea]

There are huge efforts being made to attract investment into NI, often with success. The tech and legal sectors and the film industry are all growing.

We really aren't just sitting here waiting for the rest of the UK to support us.

It would have been nice if some consideration could have been given to how much the leave vote would fuck us though.

[Kinnane]

mr writer re. the UK bail out to Ireland - it was a loan being paid back with massive interest payments.

[rockshandy]

It broke before the general election, but she has been elected.

And that is an issue that lies squarely at the feet of people in her constituency. Again, a small part of the population.

It may be democracy, but that does not mean that every citizen is happy with it, or responsible for it.

You seem hell bent on pointing the finger at the people of NI. And while you and countless others are doing so, Theresa May rampages on.

[treaclesoda]

I can give you a very good reason why the entrepreuneurial (that isn't spelt right, is it? ) spirit is lacking in N Ireland. I'd be terrified of starting a successful business here because you'd end up paying off paramilitaries from both sides in protection money. You'd be lucky to have anything left for yourself, and if you don't pay up you might end up with your business destroyed. Who would want to set themselves up for that?

[PunjanaTea]

There are entrepreneurs here though, many of whom have plenty of money left for themselves from what I can see.

[LaMontser]

The money is capital money. Last year the capital spend in the U.K. Was about £760/770bn depending on source. This deal is the equivalent on U.K. Having £760 and giving NI 50p a year for two years. There is no revenue tail. It's not the same pot that cuts generally come from- cuts are mostly revenue money because there needs to be a recurrent saving. The NI money won't pay for new nurses - it will pay for infrastructure like buildings. Or waiting list pressures this year.

The DUP / terrorist allegations are atrocious. The reality of politics here is that everyone has had to hold their noses to get over the hurdles of the troubles. Let's also not forget that SF have actual convicted terrorists in their ranks.

I'm delighted we're getting the money hey. NI has suffered significant underinvestment for decades due to security issues. The DUP simply won't be able to spend it in their constituencies as the system doesn't allow it.

The nature of much of the commentary about NI, the DUP and their voters has been vile here and in much of the media.