dole unless they sign on in Newtownards etc and reside in the vicinity. 'You just tell them they won't get their dole unless they sign on in Newtownards etc and reside in the vicinity.' Whichever Minister or Taoiseach in the Republic would utter such stupidity would find himself/herself hanging upside down from a lampost in Merrion Row while irate mobs jumped up and down on whichever political party's corpse said Minister/Taoiseach belonged to ? If you want people in the Republic to fight and possibly lose their lives for a shower of ideologues you'll have to promise them a lot more than the dole . And in any event Northern Ireland has bugger all in terms of resources worth losing a life for ! "One imagines that the whole purpose of the Irish state keeping a standing army of 8,500, with a reserve of 13,000, and sending them abroad to trouble spots from Afghanistan through to Western Sahara, is in preparation for this contingency. " One would imagine wrong. They are mostly employed in protecting Securicor vans from Irish republican terrorists and home grown mafiosa. "I am disappointed that Paddy seems to be the only Southerner posting. He may be typical but I feel from my frequent visits that most people (the most I meet) would dread having inter-communal strife coming South." I have commented. And my comment was that every opinion poll in the ROI indicates overwhelming support for a UI; opinion polls here can be taken seriously unlike