We, who share this island, have more in common with of each other than with anyone living on the island next door

(The editorial can be read here: ‘Unionists should have nothing to do with Dublin’s new ‘shared island’ unit,’ October 23)

It said: “Irish generosity towards shared infrastructure is welcome in Belfast, as UK financial support to Ireland during the financial crisis was no doubt welcome in Dublin.”

The difference of course was that the UK financial support to Ireland came with strings attached and had to repayed.

Britain’s loan to Ireland was solely a business transaction and given to protect UK businesses and banks.

Two of the four major high street main banks in Northern Ireland are Irish owned. George Osborne stated that it was overwhelmingly in Britain’s interest to protect the sizable number of business in the UK that done business in Ireland to protect Irish banks. They were literally protecting their own business and banking systems.

When Ireland offered to repay the UK loan early, the UK invoked a £200 million penalty clause on top of the £400 million interest already paid.

For their ‘generosity’ to Ireland they received a sizable return on their investment, stability for their businesses and avoided their banking system crashing.

Ireland’s generosity towards shared infrastructure does not have to be repaid.

There are two jurisdictions sharing this island. We cannot ignore each other forever.

We, who share this island, have more in common and a better understanding of each other, than anyone living on the island next door does. If both jurisdictions are to co exist then a way must be found for mutual co operation and living as good neighbours. Constantly ignoring each other won’t work in the long term.

Unless we can find a better way to work at ‘house sharing’, eventually for the sake of our generations to come and not to leave them with the same legacy that we had, there just might be a greater demand for a single island approach rather than a shared island approach.

Mary Russell, Dundalk

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