The Northern Ireland Question.

There was some increasingly well-publicised discrimination against Catholics by small Unionist councils west of the river Bann but the Northern Ireland Housing Trust set up near the end of the Second World War was never accused of this. This uncertainty, coupled with IRA attacks which, as after 1970, were conducted with little heed for their cost to innocent Catholics from Loyalist reprisals, left what he describes as 'an indelible impact on Northern Ireland's constitution and cohesion'. Any Dublin government of a thirty-two county state would have to face this dramatic shortfall in funds despite the recent macro-economic performance of the republic being arguably much better than Northern Ireland's. [Extracted from the article]