The morose Shared Island initiative that Martin has been promoting, which sits within the Department of the Taoiseach, costs money but is said to be a way to unlock Growth. 

The Shared Island Fund was announced in Budget 2021, with initial €500m in capital funding available between 2021-25, ring-fenced for investment in collaborative North/South projects.

[…] The new Programme for Government agreed in January 2025 commits a further €1 billion to the Shared Island Fund up to 2035 to foster reconciliation, mutual respect and growth and sets out a range of new investment and cooperation commitments.

So the principle of spending money on integration with the Occupied Territories, thereby enabling growth, has already been established within An Taoiseach’s own office. Given the resistance to thinking of spending money on Reunification to achieve growth, we are forced to consider the likelihood that this initiative is intended to be an alternative to Reunification; an attempt to buy off the Irish people. And sure enough Martin is shameless enough in his West Britishness to say that this project, combined with making the Good Friday Agreement work, renders a Border Poll less attractive politically, mysteriously adding: “You will notice that I’ve never sought to trumpet the Shared Island initiative.”

Taking time out from a visit to belatedly sniff out the Japanese as a possible source of funding, now that the Partitionist Party is about to be found out for its lack of an economic policy in the  forthcoming Trumpian catastrophe, Martin was unhappy to be asked about the new study. Possibly he was particularly cranky on the day, as he found himself wearing a full suit in extreme heat, telling us everything we need to know about the man. So what did the sweaty leader of the State have to say about this important research, on this most important issue? The Journal quizzed him on his thoughts.

He replied: “I think those kind of reports are nonsense and I wouldn’t pay much heed to it, to be frank.”

He added that “reconciliation is key”.

Reconciliation being a Partionist codeword for giving in to what the Settler Colonists want, which is what the Partionists want, which is No Reunification. As the Irish Border Poll website neatly puts it: ‘Reconciliation’ is a unionist veto.

“I have a difference of perspective in terms of all these issues,” said Martin.

“It’s not a cost issue, it’s fundamentally a reconciliation issue.

So it is not about cost—as Macdara has argued. But then he has second thoughts, remembering that Partionists will, like the supremacist fascists they are allied with, use absolutely anything and everything as an argument against having a complete country again.

“And of course, the costs are much higher than that,” said Martin, who then made reference to the IIEA report.

He handpicks the research that suits him best, which comes from within the Partitionist Establishment. But then he remembers that the budget surplus is so big! This must negate his argument surely?

“From a budgetary point of view, I already know the difficulties, notwithstanding that we’re in surplus and will be adding an increase in expenditure.

“There will be significant costs attached to it… but the fundamental issue in terms of the island of Ireland is reconciliation, and we must do the hard work of reconciliation and concentrate on that, in my view,” said Martin.

Back to costs again, necessitating a final return to the unanswerable Unionist veto. This is the circular logic of Partionism: everything is an argument for the Border and if Reunification is to even be discussed, it must already have the support of those most opposed to it, the Settler Supremacists.