There’s the real danger that the Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) community could regard such cash as Dublin trying to buy it off in return for a border poll.
Last week was the anniversary of the signing of the November 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement which sparked the doomed Ulster Says No and Ulster Still Says No street protests.
One element of that agreement was the availability of cash for various projects in Northern Ireland. Unionists and loyalists tended to regard applying for such funding as ‘blood money’, given the new role in Northern Ireland affairs Dublin gained via the Hillsborough Accord.
The political dilemma which the PUL community faced over the Anglo-Irish Agreement funding, and faces over the current Dublin funding, is the same theological dilemma which many Christian Churches face over applying for National Lottery funding, given the cash is raised from gambling - a habit clearly frowned upon by Christians.
In spite of that lottery funding making a potentially significant difference to facilities in places of worship, such money was seen as being ‘off the world’ and was, therefore, to be strictly avoided.
The problem for the PUL community is that if it adopts a similar attitude to the current Dublin slush fund as the churches do towards lottery cash, that funding will be readily snapped up by the nationalist and republican community.
Practically, given the cost of living crisis, the shortfall in the Northern Ireland budgets, and especially the lack of a fully functioning Stormont Executive, the PUL community needs to box clever using their financial heads rather than their cultural hearts.
The strategy should be that adopted by the late former First Minister, the Rev Ian Paisley, during his first European Parliamentary election campaign in 1979. He indicated that whilst he was a euro skeptic, he was going to the European Parliament to ‘milk the EU cow’.
The PUL strategy is bluntly simple - milk the Dublin cow! It should not be forgotten by the PUL community that during the Troubles, many republican terrorists used the safety of the Irish Republic to launch shooting and bombing attacks on Northern Ireland, and especially during their ethnic cleansing campaign of the unionist community in the border counties.
Just as the Treaty of Versailles after the Great War forced Germany to pay reparations for the tragedy inflicted on Europe as a result of World War One, then the PUL community should view this Dublin slush funding as Troubles reparations from the Dail for allowing the 26 Southern counties to be used as springboards for terror attacks on Northern Ireland.
Likewise, it should not be forgotten by the PUL community that several years ago when the so-called Celtic Tiger economy imploded, it was British millions which bailed out the Republic.
The current Dublin slush fund can then be viewed as the Dail returning the serve and thanking the PUL community for that UK bailout.
The additional attitude which the PUL community must adopt is - take the money now while it is available, and before Sinn Fein gets into government in Leinster House after the next Dail general election.
Multiple opinion polls put the Provisional IRA’s political wing odds on to dramatically increase its representation of TDs in the Dail, resulting in either a Sinn Fein majority government, or the major partner in a Dail coalition government. Either option puts Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald as the next Taoiseach.
However, in spite of those opinion polls, the bitter political reality is that Sinn Fein has little or no experience of governing a country. It has always been a party of protest.
The last time Sinn Fein had such a majority across the island of Ireland was after the 1918 Westminster General Election following the end of the Great War and Sinn Fein won the majority of the 105 House of Commons seats available.
So Sinn Fein set up Dail Eireann, negotiated the Treaty, voted to support the Treaty which partitioned Ireland - and promptly split to spark the bloody Irish Civil War between the anti-Treaty IRA and the pro-Treaty Free State forces.
More IRA members were killed by the Free State forces than were killed in the previous War of Independence. Indeed, it was only in 1986, years after the end of the civil war, that Sinn Fein voted to allow its TDs to take their seats in the Dail.
Is it a case that the current Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael administration in Dublin is using this Northern Ireland slush fund as an election gimmick in a last ditch bid to fend off a Sinn Fein government in Southern Ireland?
After all, if the DUP does decide to return to Stormont, 2024 could see a situation not just with a Sinn Fein Taoiseach in Dublin, but with a Sinn Fein First Minister at Stormont. Sinn Fein’s so-called Shared Island rhetoric will be as useful to the PUL community as an ashtray on a motorbike.
The Republic may be very financially stable at the moment, but with Sinn Fein in charge at Leinster House, just wait until the costs of Sinn Fein’s social housing agenda become a reality.
Sinn Fein has no credible track record in government. At Stormont, all its ministers did was yap for more money from Westminster.
Perhaps the best way Irish Unity can be scuppered is a five-year term of Sinn Fein in government in Dublin when the republican party bankrupts the Southern Irish economy.
Maybe that’s why the current Dail administration is giving away so much cash now. The establishment parties know there will be no cash sweeteners for Northern Ireland with a Sinn Fein-run Dail.
 |
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. |
No comments