Ned O'Keefe on TWIP - "Sterling is our natural home"

[Johnny Boy]

We do far more trade with the UK that with any other country and by pagging we control that element of our inports and exports with our biggest trading partner.

This is no longer true. The USA is now our biggest export market and we even export more to Belgium than to the UK
Economic Incentives: Trading partners
When Ireland broke from sterling (I can hardly believe it was 32 years ago this month) we probably still did around 50% of our trade wiht the UK . Despite the break the economy took off in the next 20 years. Ireland floundered when we were tied to sterling and only flourished when the currency broke free of it. I'm not suggesting that the break in itself was the only catalyst for this but there's perhaps a lesson there.

[hammer]

You have to laugh if RTE need to get Ned on

[john moriarty]

...and we even export more to Belgium than to the UK..

Didn't someone here recently point
out that the port of Antwerp skews
those 'exports to Belgium' figures by
masking their eventual destinations?
Don't have a link, sorry..

[SPQR]

Thought you could not get a worse muppet than Mattie McGrath last week, but I was wrong!

[Keith-M]

This is no longer true. The USA is now our biggest export market and we even export more to Belgium than to the UK
Economic Incentives: Trading partners
When Ireland broke from sterling (I can hardly believe it was 32 years ago this month) we probably still did around 50% of our trade wiht the UK . Despite the break the economy took off in the next 20 years. Ireland floundered when we were tied to sterling and only flourished when the currency broke free of it. I'm not suggesting that the break in itself was the only catalyst for this but there's perhaps a lesson there.

I deliberately said "trading partner". When you add the total value of imports and exports, the U.K. is still #1. As noted above the Belgium number are distorted as they are simply reflecting Antwerp's role as one of Europe's biggest forwarding port. The economy didn't take off due to the break with sterling as anyone who lived here through the mid to late 1980s will tell you. The economy went downhill after we broke the link.