What is the solution to the Irish border?

[MegCleary]

Keen to hear, as I am struggling.

bean I agree about the huge double pensions politicians get! They should have to wait till retirement age to claim them, same as anyone else who gets made redundant, and they can sign on like everyone else of they can't get a job. Though a lot of them have private income anyway, through property and business.

From reading threads on mumsnet, I think expensive school uniforms appear to be a very Irish thing, on both sides of the border.

I know I've had a lot of 'well that must be a private school' when I've mentioned on here how much the uniform costs.

Unfortunately Watching a lot of the big companies will employ someone for months and then leave them go for a few weeks before reemploying them again so that the person do not get made permanent. This could go on for years and during the recession people didn't have much of a choice. Zero contract hours are also a big issue. I agree Apile about universities but it's getting more and more expensive for middle income families who aren't entitled to the grant.

It's interesting we're even discussing it. If a no deal Brexit does go ahead and violence is confined to the north, I can see businesses relocating to other parts of Ireland where there is easier access to the rest of the EU. Jacob Rees-Mogg has already moved money to Dublin.

This could mean being part of Ireland might be more attractive.

University is a big concern Eeny - I even saw a calculation done recently for a family with older teens which said you'd have to be earning something like €60000 to match the social welfare payments, medical card and university fees compared to grants. I can't remember the exact figures and no of children though.

Eeeny, I am funding my twins at university. The fees alone are £9250 per child (although you can get a student loan for it but of course then have to pay it back). In Scotland there are no student fees. Yet we are supposed to be one nation.

In Wales and NI and Scotland there are no prescription charges. In England prescription charges are £8.80 per item and even students pay them (although very low income families do not). England raises £450m a year from those charges alone. I don't see why when the services in each of the 4 regions are similar that we have charges in one of the 4 areas and not in the others particularly when English taxes (about 80% of us are in England) tend to subsidise the rest of the UK (although I know the Scots think their oil contributes a lot)

God Xenia, that's mad money. Here it is capped at 3000 per year so that is a big difference. The biggest problem here is that many students go to college in another county and so need some where to rent. My niece is studying in Dublin and her parents have to pay 6,000 rent for a crummy flat. Students are struggling to find places to live. But putting accommodation aside 9000 pounds to 3000 euros is a huge difference.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-45001905?__twitter_impression=true

We can't go backwards.

Xenia, would it not be the case where Scotland get a certain amount of money based on population and they decide themselves how to spend it? How does it work?

I believe in the UK at present you must pay for your own diabetes medication if you aren't on benefits

No this isn’t true. Prescriptions are free in Scotland and Wales. In England there is a prescription charge with exemptions for children, pensioners, people on low incomes and those with a selection of long term health conditions including diabetes.

I actually never knew there was a prescription charge at all. Here low income with a medical card pay 2 Euro per item. For the rest there is the drug payment scheme which means that the most you pay for prescriptions is 134 euros per month, everything after that is free.

That's good.

Surrey that was aimed at Janet - good that diabetes meds are free I meant.

With pointing out that the 134€ is per household too I suppose. Also that 20% of anything you pay for medical bills is claimable back in tax.

Sorry, not Surrey!

It’s called devolved government for Goodness sake. It’s been around for decades in the UK. Xenia I’m afraid your attitude toward it is very arrogant here.

I don't think enough people know that the 80% of us who are in England of those in the UK pay £8.80 for every prescription, £9250 a year university fees (or get a loan for those) etc etc and every year it gets worse and worse and yes I do know it's about devolved government and we have a massive mess at present over Scotland deciding to add 1% tax rate so you get soldiers in England or Scotland moving from one to the other, tax exemptions and reliefs all messed up, massive jurisdictoinal problems over which tax rate to apply and it's a terrible mess. I would rather we just pulled together like one country just as Ireland does rather than having different rules on student fees in Dublin than another part.

£8.80 prescription charge is a massive amount. University students are not even exempt even though they either have very high fees or large loans to fund. Given how much cheaper houses are in Scotland and Wales perhaps that's my solution - and both those places have recently introduced different land taxes instead of stamp duty when you buy a house there too. It's getting very complicated indeed the difference between them. In fact I've started saying English law in contract not laws of England and Wales because of these differences.

Scotland is a country, not a region

The funding Scotland (and Wales and NI) receives is calculated using the Barnet formula and is a function of government spending in England (excluding what is deemed to be UK "national" infrastructure which includes things like HS2 which go nowhere near Scotland and NI and the 2012 Olympics but not the Commonwealth Games ). Iirc, NI gets even more per head than Scotland and Wales (and that was before the DUP bung )

Again, iirc - Scotland contributes the 2nd most of the different areas of the UK after London. Currently it might be at a deficit - but there again, the whole of the UK is running a deficit If you were to look at the accounts over the last 30-40 years, Scotland would be in credit not that we are counting

But that's getting off the topic of this thread which is that the two parts of the island of Ireland - the province of NI and the country of Ireland - have different priorities, for which their respective citizens vote (as do the citizens of England, Wales and Scotland) and which is their choice. And under the terms of the GFA - which is an international treaty - a majority of both have to agree to reunification. It's not something that just the people of NI can decide; it was a hard won concession from Ireland to give up its "claim" to the 6 counties in the delicate negotiations that ultimately led to the GFA.

xenia your ignorance is astounding.

Different parts of Ireland do have different rules on things like student fees....clearly the rules differ between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

If you are from N Ireland and go to university in N Ireland your tuition fees are capped at a lower rate, but if you go to university anywhere else in the UK the cap is around £9000 like everyone else. But there are only two universities in N Ireland. Only about a third of students leave N Ireland to study elsewhere.

£8.80 perorescription is tiny. Try €60 per person per GP visit plus cost of prescription plus approx €150-200 per month on private health insurance! If the GP can’t help, you still pay the €60 but add €150 for a visit to a consultant plus extra for anything like an X-ray or €200 for a small procedure that takes minutes. Add the cost of opticians plus the cost of glasses. Then add the cost of dentists €60-80 per visit BEFORE any work is carried out so add €120 for a filling, €1500 for a root canal.

treacle what way does it work if a student from NI wants to study in the south?

Apile I think they pay the €3000 like everyone else. As far as I know.

www.google.es/amp/s/amp.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/students-facing-major-fees-hike-in-republic-over-uk-quitting-eu-35678483.html

I just looked it up there - it's for all EU, EEA and Swiss students who can prove residency of the above for 3 of the last 5 years. So that's something that wouldn't be fair for NI citizens to lose out on really - if you're an Irish EU citizen from being from NI shouldn't you keep your right to study in the EU (any part).

If being born in NI qualifies for Irish EU citizenship, residence in NI for 3 of the 5 years would have to qualify you for residency I would think... Thanks for posting the article Watching.