In 2010 the United Kingdom gave Ireland £3.2 billion in a bilateral aid agreement. The Act through the UK Parliament was named ‘Loans to Ireland Act 2010’. The financial assistance to Ireland was vital for its financial services sector to survive. If Ireland failed to get the financial assistance it needed from the UK and Germany then it would have most certainly been in a whole heap of trouble. Ireland as of now faces deep austerity, even deeper than that of the United Kingdom. Ireland was once named a ‘Celtic Tiger’ by Alex Salmond and the Nationalists cited Ireland as ‘one of the richest countries in the world’. Ireland’s GDP Per Capita in 2008-10 was higher than that of the United Kingdom and Germany. Though as you can tell, it wasn’t Ireland bailing out the UK’s banks – it was the UK bailing out the Irish ones – along with Germany. Does GDP Per Capita give the full picture? – No, it doesn’t. The Nationalists will use GDP Per Capita to claim that we can be “rich”, though the truth is we’re in one of the richest countries in the world as it stands and its name is the United Kingdom. Our social budget under devolution doesn’t change nor depend on volatile oil revenues to sustain itself, unlike it would under separation from the UK.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 14:51:41 +0000
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