Sinn Fein’s economic policy, lauded by its delegates at last weekends Ard Fheis,  is based upon ending partition.

Yet as Pat Leahy points out in today’s Sunday Business Post there’s little evidence that an all-Ireland economic entity would be more successful.

The most likely outcome of joining the Republic’s economy with the dysfunctional and state-subsidy dominated economy in the North is lower wages and lower welfare; as it means combining the lower standards of income and welfare in the North with the higher standards of the South.

According to the Independent Review of Economic Policy report – commissioned by the Stormont government and published last year, the economyremains deeply damaged by the Troubles.

One of its authors summarised some of its findings:

“In essence, the Northern Ireland economy has operated under wartime conditions for nearly four decades. Public sector output amounts to around 60 per cent of gross value added (the regional equivalent of GDP) . . . living standards have not converged on the UK and have diverged markedly from the Republic of Ireland and other successful countries.”

Clearly Arthur Morgan TD, who moved the motion to the adopt ‘Financing the Future’, has no idea what his comrades in Government in the North are doing.