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It's because there are two saltires there. There's the white one with a blue background for Scotland, and a red one with a white background for Northern Ireland (originally for all of Ireland). Rather than splitting the field up in to segments of blue and white to accommodate both saltires, the Irish one got a quite border instead, just like the English cross has.
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Nah mate, get St David's cross on there. Alternate it with the St George's one, just like the St Andrew's and St Patrick's ones currently are. Keep the theme going.