Editorial: Irish funding for Northern Ireland is indeed a political statement, whatever Dublin might claim to the contrary

Dublin has announced almost €1 billion in funds for Northern Ireland.

The funding seems, at first glance, to be welcome for the province – the upgrade of the A5 will save lives and it will improve infrastructure in the west.

A contribution to Casement stadium from the Republic is only fair if it is going to interfere in NI and instruct us that we must have an Irish language act, as Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney both told us during the long Sinn Fein collapse of Stormont, with all the tribal division that such UK-funded legislation will bring, then Ireland should fund a stadium that will only benefit one section of the community after its initial usage by the Northern Ireland football team.

And yesterday’s announcement was, as of late afternoon, leading the BBC NI website. Dublin pledges money for Casement and A5, ran the headline, with a subhead pointing out that Narrow Bridge will benefit too.

It seems churlish to be wary about this pledge, something lacking in a statement from the Ulster Unionist MLA John Stewart on the A5, yet as Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader says, it is not Ireland’s responsibility “to provide financial support for the provision of public services and general Northern Ireland infrastructure”.

Ireland insists it is not a political statement but its funding has been just that. Professor John Wilson Foster is an Ulster academic who spent decades in Canada and who has drawn parallels between Quebec separatists and attempts to splinter the UK. In an essay, published in the News Letter, he described last year’s Irish funding for NI under the Shared Island Initiative as our island-sized equivalent of the Belt and Road Initiative, to link regions under China-led globalism. Click here to read his essay.

This is tricky terrain for unionism but the push for an all island is coming fast, and in many forms and needs to be assessed and challenged.