Education systems throughout the world have in place various forms of selection which, across the continuum of education, allocate places to students based on their performance in examinations. This is particularly true in the case of entry into higher education. However, in Northern Ireland, selection based on academic performance starts at a much younger age, whereby students are allocated places in selective grammar schools based on their performance in what is commonly referred to as the 11+ transfer test. However, with a significant research base to suggest the multiple disadvantages and unintended consequences of such a testing and sorting regime, the government put in place various mechanisms to end academic selection, with the last government-sponsored transfer test taking place in 2008.

For those unfamiliar with the complex wheels of policy implementation and enactment in Northern Ireland, it could be assumed that after decades of negotiating the end of the transfer test, attainment of a place in post-primary schools in Northern Ireland is now based on parental, student choice and, in the modern era, with equity and inclusion to the fore of evidence informed decision-making processes; enrolment criteria that is used in most education systems, such as the age of the student and their proximity to the school.

However, the cessation of government-sponsored transfer tests was considered by certain architects of policy and practice and a proportion of grammar schools as a retrograde step that could potentially reduce the overall quality of education and social mobility of students in Northern Ireland. It has also been suggested that, despite the fact that grammar schools are embedded in legislation, removing academic selection would have the effect of ending the grammar school system. As such, in 2009, certain grammar schools that were opposed to the ending of academic selection set up their own testing system which, to this day, is used as a means of allocating places to students based on the test scores in these examinations.

The Department of Education recommended that admission to post-primary schools should not relate to academic ability and instead, the allocation of places should be based on, for example, named schools and those students who resided in the defined catchment area. The Department also recommended that primary schools should not in any way facilitate unregulated testing arrangements. However, in many respects, what was to emerge one year later highlights the importance of legislation and the fragility of policy recommendations more generally.

By way of explanation, in 2016, further guidance on the transfer test was yet again released by the Department of Education, which unhelpfully, in such a short time, contradicted previous recommendations. It was recommended that grammar schools could, if desired, use academic selection to allocate places. Furthermore, and to facilitate the continuity of such arrangements, primary schools could also supply support materials and prepare students for the tests during core teaching hours. With high praise for the continuation of academic selection, the Department of Education also highlighted that a significant benefit of academic selection is that it can enable social mobility.

As a result of certain grammar schools rejecting previous guidelines and the strong endorsement and favourable recommendations for the continuation of the transfer test, the popularity of these unregulated tests is such that approximately 50% of the entire population of primary P7 (11- to 12-year-old) students in Northern Ireland sit one or both tests.

Given the ever-changing policy narrative on academic selection that exists In Northern Ireland, the purpose of the research in Irish Studies in International Affairs (ARINS) was to deconstruct the advantages, disadvantages and unintended consequences of academic selection by combining interview data gathered from school leaders (in both the primary and post-primary sectors, from both selective grammar schools and non-selective secondary schools) in Northern Ireland, with that of the already extensive research base on academic selection and inequalities in education.

Evidence derived from this research suggests that, for those who are proponents of academic selection, the perceived benefits of gaining a place in selective grammar schools includes better overall performance in GCSE and A-level examinations, coupled with the fact that children from socio-economically deprived backgrounds can perform better than they would in comprehensive education; what in many respects could be referred to as the Peloton effect of academic selection. According to one selective grammar school principal:

The advantages are that you are taking children on a journey, and they are automatically—well, not automatically as we work very hard, and some of the children have huge socioeconomic issues, but because we have the ability of a greater chance of a child getting seven passes or five passes—they’re kind of ‘quid’s in’.

With no surprise, the perceived benefits of gaining a place in selective grammar schools was also strongly associated with enhanced academic and social status in communities.

As one non-grammar school principal stated:

I know from last year; we had a young child who was put into us, and then a couple of weeks later, he was offered a place in the grammar school. He was very, very happy. His father had commented on how happy he was, and yet his father decided to take up the place, and when I questioned him, he said it’s all about perception. ‘When you see two children walking down the school together, one in a secondary school uniform and one in a grammar school uniform, the neighbours will perceive and think that he is the smartest of the two’.

In her response to this paper, Joanne Hughes highlights the fact that:

Children (and indeed many parents) believe that a grammar school education is ‘superior’ and that at a young age, children in Northern Ireland have an acute sense that a good performance in the test and securing a grammar school place is a measure of worth, while not doing so represents failure.

By association with the preceding comments and in line with the extensive evidence base on academic selection, participants in this study also described the many disadvantages and unintended consequences of academic selection across the continuum of education. These multiple disadvantages included but were not limited to increased competition among schools, and aside from making schools ‘very competitive with each other for the wrong reasons’, the test itself was not regarded as being fair on children. Two primary school principals stated the following:

It’s not very nice, its completely unfair, focused very narrowly, completely unregulated. Now it’s more regulated than it used to be because enough years have gone past.

The test is skewed, the test is narrow and academic selection is not suited to all children.

The effects of such a testing and sorting regime was also perceived as having a significant effect on the health and wellbeing of students. As stated by one primary school principal:

Children view themselves as being a failure…and it’s the devastation to the children themselves who are waiving on a score, and that score defines them, and in one moment of opening an envelope, they are defined as a success or failure at the age of 10 or 11, and we have talked about that for many years.

What makes for very uncomfortable reading, another principal from a non-selective post-primary school also stated that:

I have about ten special needs children who are trying to get in with us, and those poor children have their own difficulties but imagine what that is doing to their mental health and not only that but what it’s doing to the family unit.

In response to this research, Tony Gallagher quite correctly and succinctly states that:

what they find is, in some respects, unremarkable: the selection system remains socially biased; it continues to distort the curriculum of primary schools; it leads to high variance in educational outcomes in the population; it encourages a narrow focus on qualifications as if this is the only important priority for education; and those who benefit it from the system want to retain it, while those who do not want to change it.

In conclusion, it is quite disconcerting and, in many respects, exasperating that research of this nature still has had to be carried out at all, given the overwhelming evidence in the existing body of research to suggest that the 11-plus transfer examination is damaging to: teaching and learning; the health and wellbeing of students and their families prior to and after the examination; equity and inclusion in education; the international profile of Northern Ireland’s education system; society at large.

There are far more prescient issues which those architects of policy and practice need to focus their influence and efforts on, such as, with evidence-informed policy and human and social capital to the fore, putting in place mechanisms to: enhance equity of participation in education for students from all cultural affiliations; enhance shared and community-based education; increasing the number of socio-economically deprived students continuing their studies at the further or higher education level.

These efforts should not include fuelling an outdated and divisive sorting and testing regime that, in many respects, takes the focus away from an education system that is internationally renowned for (regardless of the school type) the quality of teaching and leadership together with advances in shared education, digital education, school evaluation, to name but a few examples.

Read the full article by Martin Brown and colleagues, ‘The rise and fall and rise of academic selection’, as well as the responses to the article by Professors Tony Gallagher and Joanne Hughes (Queen’s University) as they appear in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs: ARINS.

Discussions about constitutional change on the island of Ireland have advanced significantly. The scale of ongoing work in civil society, political parties and universities is impressive. That is not to neglect what went before; many have been pressing the case for decades. For those who seek a united Ireland, this is merely the latest phase in a long journey, a time when the preferred end goal seems to be in sight.

Political unionism appears to be in denial, casting doubt on the extent of the debate, its appropriateness, and the evidential basis for it. Brexit is playing a lead role in altering the mood, for reasons that have been exhaustively rehearsed and are not hard to decipher. Northern Ireland has been removed from the EU; an automatic return option stands ready to be operationalised. While much attention will be on what a united Ireland looks like, there should be just as much interest in what happens before the vote. How will the anticipated referendums work? Will it be possible to test democratic consent in a way that is perceived as legitimate and fair? How do you guarantee that the Good Friday Agreement is respected and that a good faith reading prevails? By way of answering these questions, let us draw out a number of core themes.

First, this may appear surprising given the volume of work, but there is still room for normalising the discussion. That task has become easier, as more people, including prominent figures – such as the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar – openly enter the field. Those engaging in the public debate without something useful to say seem out of place. The narrative framing around planning and preparation assists; it is hard to argue against responsible management of an agreed process. It is a space that political and civic actors now feel confident, for a variety of reasons, to venture into. As the work noted above proliferates, the next challenge will be encouraging people to engage with each other in a productive and coordinated way, for the purpose of ensuring that coherent propositions emerge. That may prove difficult, as tensions on both sides of the argument begin to manifest themselves. Agreeing on a constitutional objective tells us little about what is substantively envisaged, for the Union or for a united Ireland. Few seem immune from the temptation to settle political scores and the next phase may be hazardous.

Second, the existing framework must be further clarified, and a sufficient consensus achieved around how it will operate. Both governments have a particular role, with others, and the more that can be agreed in advance the better. As argued in my article in Irish Studies in International Affairs, the British government cannot, if it is to comply with the Agreement, withhold relevant information. The obligation of ‘rigorous impartiality’ requires honesty about how any transition will be managed. Attempts must be made to incentivise inclusive and meaningful dialogue before the referendums take place. In particular, care should be taken to avoid a framing that would privilege post hoc and exclusively elite-level political negotiations or suggest that there is a communal veto over progress. In order to avoid that it would be helpful if the parameters were discussed and articulated in an agreed form soon. Many of these matters can be resolved now, and there is some clarity around how, for example, the outcome will be measured and the choices on offer made. Given the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, it is unlikely that any purely internal way forward within the UK will secure the required levels of trust, so international experience and oversight may be helpful.

Third, the task of setting out the deliverable proposals for a united Ireland will, in the end, fall to an Irish government. That must come after a period of wide and deep civic engagement and political reflection. What follows the referendums, if there are votes for change, will be a process of implementing known proposals. While there will be intergovernmental negotiation, on a rolling basis, and that can be imaginatively conceived, much of the post-referendum politics must be around practical implementation. The argument advanced in my article about the urgent need for preparation therefore aligns with those calling for extensive planning. The objective is not to impede progress – I have also argued for a time frame to be put in place – but to ensure a proper understanding of the consequences of a vote either way.

Finally, the article makes the case throughout for an all-island approach. Yes, there is a need to recognise the distinctive nature of the two jurisdictions on the island, and relationships across these islands, but the right of self-determination belongs to the people of the island of Ireland and the outcome will be decided on the basis of their concurrent consent. The rationale and logic behind this must be respected at every stage. An approach that further privileges a separate and detached Northern Ireland dimension would be a mistake and contrary to any reasonable, good faith and contextual reading of this Agreement right. In my view, that means simultaneous referendums based on clarity about what is on offer, preceded by an all-island process of informed and honest civic and political dialogue. This will need to be robust enough to withstand the pressure that will come and, as noted, mechanisms to provide international oversight may assist.

Although the constitutional debate is complex, a simple idea remains at its core. If the status of Northern Ireland does rest on consent, and if the right belongs to the people of the island without ‘external impediment’, then it is only fair to offer a democratic choice in the way, and in the circumstances, anticipated in the Agreement. That day may arrive sooner than many realise.

Read the full article by Colin Harvey, ‘Let “the People” Decide: Reflections on Constitutional Change and “Concurrent Consent”’, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs: ARINS.

Her article outlining the work and findings has been peer reviewed and will shortly be published in Irish Studies in International Affairs along with other ARINS work. You can read the paper ‘Collaborating on Healthcare on an All-Island Basis: A Scoping Study’ here in advance of publication.

This independent scoping research was commissioned by the Shared Island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach as a discussion paper contribution for a Shared Island Dialogue event on ‘Working together for a healthier island’, on 8th July 2021, held as part of the Government of Ireland’s Shared Island initiative. Recordings and reports of the Shared Island Dialogue series are available at www.gov.ie/SharedIsland/Dialogues.

Professor Deirdre Heenan was formerly Provost and Dean of Academic Development at the Magee Campus. A distinguished researcher, author and broadcaster, she is a member of the Institute for Research in Social Sciences and has published widely on healthcare, education policy, social care and devolution. She is a co-founder and former co-director of the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey. Her previous article ‘Cross-border co-operation Health in Ireland’ is freely available in Irish Studies in International Affairs.

Negotiating a post-Brexit settlement between the UK and EU continues in a tense and evolving political arena. This is particularly true in respect of Northern Ireland, as disagreement on the mechanisms needed to facilitate an ongoing movement and trade settlement has caused civil and political discontent; and the threat of a hard border being re-introduced lingers. Similarly, some scholars and political activists have argued that the UK’s exit from the EU has expedited the impetus for a border poll on the island, with greater legitimacy being attributed to calls for full constitutional reunification.

But one area that remains under-explored is the issue of social welfare provision, and what it will look like in both jurisdictions in the coming years. This not only pertains to debates surrounding reunification, but also to maintaining the current coordination arrangements in place by virtue of the Common Travel Area (CTA) that exists between both states.

Common Drivers, Different Tracks

Both the Irish and UK welfare states can be classified as liberal welfare states. This is due to their emphasis on employment, and drive to provide minimum subsistence payments where applicants have not made adequate national insurance contributions. It is also true that due to its colonial history, Ireland places similar divisions between contributory benefits and means-tested benefits. However, this surface-level comparison of both systems is unhelpful for many reasons, particularly alongside the interaction of different healthcare systems that either absorb or generate additional costs for claimants. We argue that a ‘first-principles’ approach is more appropriate in beginning to envisage what a new welfare settlement could look like.

The two states began to ideologically diverge with the Thatcher government in the 1980s, which sought to erode social solidarity, cut the generosity of payments, increase means-testing and engage in ‘activation’ policies that sought to make payments more conditional upon engagement with the labour market. These policies, underpinned by ‘welfare conditionality’, continued through the Major and then Blair governments, before the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government engaged with great enthusiasm in austerity politics, seeking to cut social security entitlements significantly, as well as creating a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants and limiting their recourse to social welfare funds. The picture is further complicated by devolution in Northern Ireland, which does have an explicit competence in respect of social security but has often failed to significantly diverge from the Westminster government due to budgetary constraints.

Despite the UK’s more intense embrace of public spending reductions, we identified three common drivers in the development of the contemporary welfare state in both jurisdictions: activation; austerity and xenophobia. All three of these drivers can also be seen in the retrenchment of the Irish welfare state, albeit at different times and to varying extents. Xenophobia was seen in the late 1990s following Ireland’s first significant experience of inward migration, and by creating the parallel system of welfare provision for asylum seekers, Direct Provision. Both activation and austerity would not become sustained features of the Irish system until the late 2000s until the bailout package introduced following the global financial crisis. Overall, it is argued that both welfare states have a shared downward trajectory within levels of material social supports granted, particularly in the last twenty five years.

Shared Future

The ideological commonalities, coupled with the practical distinctions, pose significant questions regarding the shared future of welfare provision on the island. EU law has played a significant role in supporting welfare coordination for cross-border workers, and still significant gaps remain in this area. Therefore, it has been argued that a new Treaty should be created between North and South to facilitate greater coordination and guarantee protections. However, the viability of this approach remains questionable given the ‘success’ of previous attempts (or lack thereof) in the area.

We argue that due to the sustained downward trajectory of both states in respect of social welfare provision, and exacerbated by the pandemic, there is a pressing need to push for radical, rights-based change to current welfare state structures across the island. This necessitates integrating discussions on social welfare provision into all debates on all-island coordination, with input from stakeholders. This is due to a fundamental concern that attempting to purely harmonise access might provide an opportunity for political actors to further erode the current levels of social welfare provision in both jurisdictions.

This conversation becomes crucial in respect of any future settlement that might result from reunification. Amalgamating two different systems would mean choosing a single vision for what welfare provision would be. That could mean choosing the lowest level of provision available for a particular payment, or the most conditional, thus solidifying a ‘new Ireland’s’ liberal approach. On the other hand, preparation for a new constitutional settlement presents an opportunity to vividly reimagine a welfare state that reflects the needs and ambitions of a modern and forward-thinking Ireland.

It is imperative that these difficult questions are posed now, and that public debate considers what a progressive shared future can and should look like based on strong evidence and the lived experiences of those who have; and continue to be supported by the welfare state.

Read the full article by Ciara Fitzpatrick and Charles O’Sullivan, ‘Comparing Social Security Provision North and South of Ireland: Past Developments and Future Challenges’, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs: ARINS.

Recent years have witnessed a growing chorus of calls for a citizens’ assembly in Northern Ireland. There are groups dedicated to lobbying for an all-island citizens’ assembly in advance of a future referendum, while an all-island citizens’ assembly is also mentioned in official Sinn Féin policy documents. Others are less specific, but for example, the British and Irish government’s 2020 New Decade, New Approach document proposed that one citizens’ assembly be held per year. However, it is notable that such proposals have not been welcomed by any of the unionist parties and indeed part of the reason for the collapse of the Civic Forum in 2002 was the DUP’s belief that it did not contain sufficient numbers of anti-Good Friday Agreement opinion.

And so we must remain cautious—citizens’ assemblies or other deliberative methods are no panacea. There are risks as well as opportunities; these are heightened in a divided society and heightened further when the political issue at stake is one of identity. There is some hope that the deliberative systems’ turn in democratic theory may provide some answers. This may be achieved through creating new, parallel institutions to inject more deliberation into the system, both through separate deliberative institutions and a focus on social practices underpinning deliberation within society. These deliberative processes and systems have particular strengths when tied to collective decision-making mechanisms such as referendums, strengthening the connection and legitimacy between the relatively small numbers within the deliberative institution and the wider maxi-public looking on.

The perceived advantages of such deliberative scrutiny are potentially multifaceted, including helping to counter elite manipulation; facilitating perspective taking and empathy building, and increasing reflection; delivering systematic improvements in democratic outcomes such as alignment between values and votes, i.e. correct voting; and reducing polarisation. However, we should also recall that a direct connection to a referendum increases the salience of the deliberation and in a divided society this can be problematic.

Further, good deliberation takes planning. There are a number of essential components and civility norms. There is also rather less experience to date of deliberation in deeply divided societies. Indeed, there are those who warn that it is simply not possible in deeply segmented or polarised societies, and that it could backfire and inflame sectarian political conflict.

In order to consider whether these challenges can be overcome, we need to consider whether the circumstances of Northern Ireland fit the meta-requirements of deliberation and how the requirements of deliberative systems can be adapted to local circumstances and culture. Inclusion essentially implies that any decision-making process must include, on equal terms, all those subject to its decisions. Moderation says if we enter such a process we must be prepared to moderate our claims in the face of the opposing views of our fellow participants. These are very difficult conditions to meet when deliberating in a deeply divided society.

The way forward is likely to conceive of the public sphere in Northern Ireland as part of a deliberative system rather than envisaging a single contested deliberative assembly preceding a poll on the future of the polity. A possible approach could be to emulate the Ostbelgien or East Belgium with an overarching Northern Ireland-only forum that can hold various local citizens’ assemblies and juries with topics decided in a bottom-up manner. The initial topics must be cross-cutting, and must be about improving the lives of all citizens and thus provide evidence to all that the process can work and can be trusted. This was the modus operandi of the first Constitutional Convention in the republic, which considered issues such as the length of the presidential term and a reduction in the voting age in its first weeks before moving on to the more polarising topic of marriage equality. In a forthcoming article in the current ARINS series, I present a modest proposal for building a deliberative system in Northern Ireland which could help work towards both inclusion and moderation, should an assembly become possible in advance of a future referendum.

Read the full article by Jane Suiter, A Modest Proposal: Building a Deliberative System in Northern Ireland, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs: ARINS.

Constitutional politics, complicated by the realpolitik of Brexit, prevented an all-island public health response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the island of Ireland. There can be no doubt, as fellow ARINS author Deirdre Heenan suggests, that Brexit ‘politicised and toxified the British-Irish political landscape’, so much so that public health responses are automatically viewed as constitutional threats. From a purely public health perspective it is perfectly sensible to approach an island as a single epidemiological unit for disease control and population health. But whether we like it or not, two jurisdictions co-exist, sometimes uneasily, on the island of Ireland, preventing, in this case and at this time, an all-island response to outbreak management and containment of Covid-19.

Throughout the world, Covid-19 has highlighted the interdependence of the relationship between the science of public health and politics. It is well recognised that public health policy is formulated, contested, adopted and implemented by social and political processes. Indeed, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control acknowledges that public health measures need to be informed by evidence but ‘they will very rarely be purely evidence-based. Social and political considerations will also need to be taken into account.’

We have seen this complex interplay in action on both sides of the border over the last year, at times entangled in what the social research scientist on public health, Constance Nathanson calls the ‘cacophonic voices’ of differing social and political interests.

Much media commentary has concurred with Heenan’s analysis that both governments had continued to ‘plough their own furrow’ over the course of the first wave of the pandemic in Ireland, with, as she suggests, ‘little more than lip service paid to working collectively to fight this common scourge.’ Our comparative policy analysis, complemented by a stakeholder consultation found, however, that while less than perfect, there was broad alignment in public health and containment policy responses to Covid-19 in the republic of Ireland (RoI) and Northern Ireland (NI) including in the pace of their introduction. Content analysis of Hansard and health department minutes of meetings also revealed regular dialogue between the Public Health Agency in NI and the NPHET in the RoI including weekly conversations between the chief medical officers on a range of cross-border Covid-19-related matters.

Inter-jurisdictional alignment is evident in the joint cancellation of St Patrick’s Day parades on 9 March 2020; lockdown/shelter-in-place policies (23 March 2020) and restrictions on internal movement, public transport, social distancing measures (although NI made a brief deviation to one metre in June 2020 before reverting to two metres), and the mandatory wearing of face masks.

Some differences in the number of tests conducted in NI compared to the RoI point to more significant policy divergence at the point at which the first wave began to subside, but workplace closures, while defying direct comparison because each jurisdiction staggered the closure of different venues, closed all workplaces in the space of one week in early March. School closures certainly revealed a more cautious and conservative tendency in the RoI, with school closures announced contrary to guidance from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) at the time. This particular policy issue emphasised NI’s traditional fault-lines with some schools under Catholic-sector management closing their doors in response to RoI policy, while republican parties aligned their position with Dublin and unionist parties with London.

Similar if constitutionally different challenges were at play at the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. At that time, harm reduction approaches were promoted by some public health experts, including the provision of condoms to men who have sex with men, at a time when homosexual acts had only just been decriminalised in NI, but remained criminalised in the RoI and contraception, of any kind, was only available to married people on prescription. Then, as now, politics found a less than ideal and deeply unpopular solution in response to the needs of vulnerable populations at risk of AIDS. National and international case studies of HIV/AIDS, the Ebola and Zika viruses, and SARS-CoV-1, among many other infectious disease outbreaks across time and geographical distance, illustrate the ways in which political realities impact upon and impede the best intentions of public health experts. As such, while the historical and constitutional politics of the island of Ireland have been an obstacle to an all-island response to Covid-19, the framework provided by the Good Friday Agreement enabled public health policy alignment through ongoing dialogue and cooperation between the health administrations in each jurisdiction.

Read the full article by Ann Nolan et al., ‘Obstacles to Public Health that even Pandemics cannot Overcome: The Politics of Covid-19 on the Island of Ireland’, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs: ARINS.

Referendums are won (or lost) online. There needs to be a thorough regulation of social media during a campaign, an issue not addressed in a recent report.

‘Panic isn’t required; preparation for all eventualities is,’ wrote Alex Kane, a former Ulster Unionist Party communications director and now a columnist in the Belfast Telegraph’.

Since the 2016 Brexit referendum—in which a majority in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union, while the overall majority of voters in the United Kingdom voted to leave—a poll by Lord Ashcroft found a small majority of 51 percent of the voters in Northern Ireland in favour of unification. Not a massive upsurge, but still an indication that all do well to plan for ‘all eventualities’. Mr Kane’s succinct assessment was cited in the modestly titled Interim Report of the equally inconspicuous sounding Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland.

Behind this inobtrusive title is a group of what can only be described as the good and the great of all academic discussion pertaining to Northern Ireland. As I write in my more highbrow analysis in the forthcoming issue of Irish Studies in International Affairs, special focus: ARINS, the authors touch upon all the relevant issues, except one: online campaigning.

This is rather odd. It is not that the issue is unknown. Keen students of such matters (and there are more of them than you think), will recall that the Irish Standards in Public Office Commission expressed concern that ‘Facebook campaigns are not regulated by this legislation—meaning individuals or groups from anywhere can pay for Facebook advertising targeting certain demographics of Irish voters’. And, as many would know, the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom was in part won because Dominic Cummings—the leader of Vote Leave—was able to harvest data from Facebook, and target the voters. The rest is history. The chronicle of how this happened is part of a book I have just published with two colleagues of mine, The referendum in Britain: a history.

If a possible referendum on unification of the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland is to be held—and that looks increasingly likely—online campaigning and social media must be regulated.

The pioneering experience of other countries serves as inspiration, for example, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland and Portugal.

It is well-known that Russia has on several occasions used cyber-warfare to interfere in domestic affairs in their small eastern neighbours. For this reason, Estonia (a particular target of Putin’s government) has been at the forefront of developing mechanisms to hinder interference. After a cyber-attack in 2007, the Riigikogu (the Estonian parliament) passed the Advertising Act, which bans political advertising on the internet, including ‘subliminal techniques’.

Other countries have followed suit. Neighbouring Latvia, for example, has prohibited ‘hidden campaigning’, and explicitly cites advertising on the ‘Internet’.

If the future referendum is to be fair, similar mechanisms must be introduced.

Some might argue that the Baltic nations are a special case. Perhaps so. But, it is not just in these former Soviet republics that social media in referendums is regulated. Our near neighbour Iceland is another country where online anonymous campaigning is restricted and regulated. In Iceland, political bodies (not just parties) are prohibited from financing or taking part in the publishing of any campaign-related material without making their affiliation public. And, just to show that this is not merely something that happens in colder countries, in Portugal there is legislation in place to ensure that social media is not abused. In cases of violation of these regulations, there is a sanctioning regime, according to which breach of rules pertaining to commercial advertising may result in fines of between €15,000 and €75,000.

It is difficult to see why similar regulations could not be introduced in Ireland and in the United Kingdom in future referendums on unification of the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland.

In the early 1990s winning elections was all a question of stressing economic arguments. It was for this reason that Bill Clinton’s staffers coined the phrase ‘it’s the economy stupid.’ Things have changed. Today, elections and referendums are above all about online campaigning. We need to update the slogan: ‘it’s the social-media, stupid’.

Matt Qvortrup is Professor of Political Science at Coventry University. His most recent book The referendum in Britain was published by Oxford University Press. His book Death by a thousand cuts: the slow demise of democracy will be published in 2012 by De Gruyter.

Read the full article, ‘The Perils of Referendums: A Review’, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs.

In recent times factors including the shared island initiative and the debate on possible constitutional change have increased the focus on north-south issues on the island of Ireland. Yet little is known about how Northern Ireland and the republic actually compare in many areas. In our paper in ISIA we compare living standards across a broad number of dimensions including income, opportunities for life progression and general well-being so that any differences can be better understood. Overall, differences in living standards generally favour the republic of Ireland.

One measure used to assess living standards is household disposable (after-tax) income. Disposable household income was $4,600 higher in the republic than in Northern Ireland in 2017, equating to a gap of approximately 12% after accounting for differences in prices (i.e. adjusting for the different costs of buying similar goods and services) between both areas. This a reliable measure for use in standard of living comparisons. However, it ignores how income is distributed across the population and, probably more importantly, the risk of poverty. Households are considered to be at risk of poverty when their income is less than a particular threshold. Setting the threshold at 50% of the median income (mid-point in the scale of the highest to the lowest of all incomes), reveals that the proportion households at risk of poverty was 8.9% in the republic compared to 14.3% in Northern Ireland. Our analysis also suggests that the tax and welfare system in the republic tends to be much more progressive, and effective in mitigating household poverty risk, than that which prevails in Northern Ireland.

To capture opportunities for life progression we focus on education enrolment across the life-cycle. Access to and take-up of high-quality educational provision is the single-most important factor determining career success, wage growth and social progression and, therefore, can be interpreted as a key measure of opportunity in each region. Human capital development will also strongly determine regional macroeconomic outcomes, such as productivity levels and therefore ultimately, growth rates. Examining education enrolment rates by age reveals that across all ages enrolment rates are lower in Northern Ireland than in the republic. For example, the rate of young people (those aged 15–19) enrolled in post-compulsory programs is 93% in the republic compared to 74% in Northern Ireland. Rates of enrolment among 20–29-year olds in the republic are almost double that of Northern Ireland, indicating higher levels of participation in third-level education. It is unclear whether the difference in education enrolment rates is driven by access or take-up of education (or both).

Another indicator of life opportunity is the rate of early school leaving. Early school leaving is measured as the proportion of individuals aged 18 to 24 who have finished no more than a lower secondary education and are not involved in further education or training. According to OECD data, the rate of early school leaving in Northern Ireland is almost twice that of the republic; in 2018, 9.4% of young people in Northern Ireland were classified as early school leavers compared to 5.0% in the republic. Our analysis indicates that early school leaving is much more heavily concentrated in Northern Ireland among males and those with working class backgrounds compared to the republic. Overall, opportunities for individual progression afforded to individuals and/or the take-up of these opportunities through education provision appears to be more restricted in Northern Ireland than in the republic.

Differences in income, education as well as health and other factors will together generally determine life expectancy in a region. As such, life expectancy can be interpreted as a cumulative measure of differences in general welfare and living standards across regions and countries. In 2018, life expectancy at birth in the republic exceeded that of Northern Ireland by 1.4 years and while female life expectancy was above that of male life expectancy, as is common in many Western countries, the gap was marginally larger for females at 1.5 years compared to 1.4 years for males.

We hope this comparative work on living standards In the republic and Northern Ireland will inform policymakers, the business community and public debate on north-south issues and form part of the evidence base in discussions of these issues.

Read the full article, ‘Who is Better off? Measuring Cross-border Differences in Living Standards, Opportunities and Quality of Life on the Island of Ireland’, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs.

It has been widely claimed that the failure to adopt an all-island approach to the Covid-19 crisis presents a major threat to health and well-being on this island. From the earliest days of this pandemic the absence of an overall strategic approach has been identified as a major obstacle to dealing effectively with the global emergency. It has been asserted ad nauseam that ‘this virus doesn’t respect borders’ and ‘the disease does not discriminate’, but without meaningful political action. We share a single island, one epidemiological unit and therefore need coherence. Despite the broad acceptance that thinking in terms of narrow political allegiances or identities would only prolong this crisis and deepen the impact on every community, cooperation to date has been woefully inadequate. Both governments have continued to plough their own furrow with little more than lip service paid to working collectively to fight this common scourge.

In March, the first minister slammed the taoiseach for lack of cooperation with Stormont over coronavirus. She claimed that he did not brief the Northern Executive before announcing school closures and Belfast officials learnt of the new regulations through the media. The Irish government pointed the finger of blame at the Executive, suggesting some were more interested in slavishly replicating Westminster policy, rather than developing a bespoke all-island response. In April the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the north and the south was broadly welcomed and viewed as a significant step in the right direction. In the face of this existential threat, it appeared that constitutional politics would rightly play second fiddle to public health considerations. The Memorandum acknowledged a compelling case for strong cooperation, including information-sharing and, where appropriate, a common approach. In reality, this agreement appears to, at best, have made a marginal difference. Practically, it has translated to regular Zoom calls between the Chief Medical Officers and some sharing of data. Window dressing and a far cry from the integrated, single-epidemiological coherent response to Foot and Mouth Disease (affecting livestock). Substantial differences in regulations, restrictions, data analysis and messaging pose practical challenges, cause confusion and are completely illogical on an island the size of Ireland.

This debate on the divergent responses to coronavirus has pushed the wider issue of north-south cooperation in health and social care into the spotlight. Providing healthcare services commands the largest allocation of public funding on both sides of the Irish border and there are persistent concerns over the efficiency and effectiveness of these systems. Theoretically closer cooperation could deliver economies of scale, value for money, opportunities for clinical specialisation and facilitate the sharing of knowledge. Over the past two decades health has been identified as a key area for increased cross-border working. To date though, with the notable exceptions of the All-Island Congenital Heart Disease Network and the North West Cancer Centre at Altnagelvin, the approach has been minimalist and often project specific. Joint EU membership enabled cross-border healthcare activity in Ireland, Co-operation and Working Together (CAWT) was established in 1992, its mission ‘to improve the health and wellbeing of the border populations by working across boundaries and jurisdictions’. Through this vehicle significant work has been done to enhance cross-border collaboration in health service delivery. Indisputable benefits have been achieved, providing access to services for communities within the border region, largely on a south-to-north basis. However, in most instances in these initiatives funding has been time-limited, and services have not been mainstreamed.

The North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) established under the Good Friday Agreement agreed six formal areas of cooperation, for which common policies and approaches are agreed but implemented separately in each jurisdiction, including in health and accidents and planning for major emergencies. In response to the health emergency, the 24th plenary meeting NSMC was held in July 2020, the first since before the collapse of Stormont power-sharing in 2016. It gave a commitment to do ‘everything possible’ in coordination and collaboration to tackle the virus. It was agreed that an early meeting of the health sectoral group would be convened to review responses to the pandemic. At their meeting on 2 October, the sectoral group agreed to review their existing health work programme. No time frame nor objectives were agreed for this review. The health minister is legally required to provide a statement to the Assembly on this meeting, to update on progress and allow for scrutiny. To date no statement has been presented, nor is one scheduled in the Assembly business timetable. If this is how a priority is treated, one wonders how the government treats things that they don’t view as important. Just weeks ago, the deputy first minister suggested that ramping up cross-border health provision could help to reduce Northern Ireland’s ‘dire’ waiting lists. Whilst there can be no dispute that they are dire, this is empty rhetoric. Given that the Executive has yet to formulate a strategy for dealing with waiting lists which are currently 100 times that of England, this is a useful deflection. The regular and repeated calls for further collaboration and cooperation have not been accompanied by any detailed plans, cost-benefit analysis, feasibility studies or robust data to support an all-island approach.

Meaningful change in the all-island health agenda will not happen without a major policy imperative. There is an absence of any agreed strategic framework for health and social care systems to underpin cross-border cooperation, a situation exacerbated by the apparent lack of political will north and south to commit to cross-border cooperation on an agreed plan of work. The pandemic has raised difficult questions about the extent to which both governments have lived up to commitments to developing cooperation across the island. The new €500 million Shared Island Unit provides a unique opportunity to address the long-standing issues around cooperation in health and reflect on the Covid-19 response. A comprehensive programme of research and development could provide the evidence to identify interventions that would be to the ultimate benefit of all of the citizens on this island. Given the similar social, economic and political pressures faced by both health care systems coupled with a pandemic that has steamrolled the country, it is an opportunity that we can ill afford to miss.

Read the full article, ‘Cross-Border Cooperation Health in Ireland‘, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs.

After the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, Irish unity was to depend only on a democratic vote in a referendum in each Irish jurisdiction. Can Irish unity offer to unionists the ‘effective political, symbolic and administrative expression of their identity, their ethos and their way of life’, which has been a principle of nationalist politics since the New Ireland Forum Report of 1984? Unionists don’t think so. Seamus Mallon hoped that nationalists out of generosity would wait until unionists were able to accept the idea of unity. The shared island project of the (2020–) Irish coalition government also wants to postpone discussion of unity until there is more agreement on it.

But what if unionist identity is dependent on British state belonging, such that it could never be accommodated or expressed in an independent united Ireland? Does that identity give unionists a moral veto on unity for ever? Since the 1980s, nationalist politics on the island has affirmed the Two Traditions Paradigm: the right of nationalists and unionists to effective expression of their identity. John Hume used it to help achieve equality in Northern Ireland, and it was taken up by successive power-sharing executives. Can it now be used to block an agreed pathway to a united Ireland?

In fact, the Two Traditions Paradigm was never fully coherent. Identity as perspective on the world is of irreducible value—it is personal and rooted and also reflexive and responsive to change in circumstances and relationships. Identity as groupness—group solidarity, belonging and ownership over institutions and states—does not carry such value. To paraphrase Hume, the Irish can stay Irish and the British British, but the group-based assumptions about what being Irish and British entail have to change if we are to reach a position of mutual respect.

An alternative New Ireland Paradigm recognises the dissonance between identity as perspective and identity as groupness. It sees the real task as being to create institutions where identity as perspective can be voiced and identity as groupness can evolve in ways that allow for future accommodation and mutual respect. This allows us to sift out the different aspects of unionists’ concerns.

Here I look solely at the concerns that touch on identity—security and economic prosperity, health and welfare need separate treatment. Unionists—for well over a century—have worried about their minority status in a united independent Ireland, their relationship with a nationalist majority, their place in an Irish political culture that downgrades their forms of (British) cultural capital, and, today, their role in a society where no-one appears much to want them. A united Ireland would have to ensure not only that their everyday practices and their long-standing linkages to Great Britain are legally protected but that their perspectives are no less valued and validated in politics, society and public culture than are those of nationalists.

Linkages with Great Britain and the cultural specificity of the north-east of Ulster would remain in all likely constitutional futures. Choices would arise about publicly-funded institutions of socialisation, from media to museums to compulsory education. From a Two Traditions perspective, the different education and other cultural institutions north and south would remain, with access and opt-ins to the southern system for those Northerners who so choose. From a New Ireland perspective, the ideal would be to generalise linkages and choice throughout the island, to create a complex cultural mosaic in which diverse cultural traditions would be present, intersecting and evolving in an all-island context without ownership by any national or local majority: in education, this would require reconfiguration of both northern and southern systems so that the same range of choices—from the Irish language to GCSE and the Leaving Certificate—were available to all. The most difficult issues centre on the political institutions that define the parameters of political culture and the constitution that codifies the rules of political valuation. On a Two Traditions Paradigm, an amended constitution would explicitly recognise the British (or perhaps better Protestant) people of the north-east of the island alongside the Irish nation; political autonomy for Northern Ireland would likely remain under Irish sovereignty; meanwhile national symbolism would be doubled, with British flags and British anthems alongside Irish, within the still distinct Northern Ireland. On a New Ireland Paradigm, the Irish Constitution would be rewritten to affirm an overarching and authoritative political community, made up of a diversity of national and religious peoples with due protection for minorities; possible forms of unitary state would be explored; and state symbolism would be reinvented. There are real choices to be made here, prior to any decision about a united Ireland, and discussion and deliberation are urgent.

The sticking point, however, lies in the intensity of some unionists’ reactions. They feel that their British identity and the meaning of their past would be obliterated in any united Ireland: they would be defined by their republican enemies, subjected to show-trials, their linkages to British kith and kin erased, their land confiscated, their home taken from them. This is ontological insecurity that cannot be assuaged by time, contact, or rational discussion. Taken literally, their fears are unrealistic. Taken symbolically, they are right that their group-construction of a state-centred Britishness would not survive in a united Ireland—it is already in trouble in post Good Friday Northern Ireland. Rather than sustain an already problematic group identity, the task is to facilitate an articulation of and respect for identity as perspective and a reconstruction of identity as groupness. Three guiding principles follow from the New Ireland Paradigm:

1. Group identity provides neither a moral trump-card nor a political veto-right. A move away from a Two Traditions Paradigm is overdue.
2. Open-ended deliberation on principles and institutions at once gives voice to identity-as-perspective and allows autonomous change in it. It should begin now.
3. Giving voice to a wide diversity of perspectives can break the image of southern nationalist consensus—it is time to move on from the consensual images of the corporate ‘green jersey’, the southern ‘we’ and RTÉ’s Angelus.

Read the full article, ‘Unionism, Identity and Irish Unity: Paradigms, Problems and Paradoxes‘, as it appears in our journal Irish Studies in International Affairs.