Professor Patrick Honohan:

I would be inclined to think that it started but had not got out of hand when the euro came in but if we look across other countries that are not in the euro - Latvia is in the euro now but was not then; Iceland is not in the euro - we see a pattern of countries which, even though they were not in the euro, also benefiting from this great surge in availability of cheap capital around the world. The combination of the euro and the Celtic tiger period was the ingredient to sell Ireland and make people think that Ireland is different, that we were good before but now we have the euro as cheap money, and the Celtic tiger is fantastic. There was a narrative pushing the boom in Ireland. There was a different narrative in Iceland. There was a different narrative in Latvia. A narrative is needed to get these bubbles going because otherwise people will not believe in them.