Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am just acknowledging what the witness said, that it was a period during which the responsibility was national.

Mr. Nava in his own book, Economics and Policies of an Enlarged Europe, has cast doubts on whether there were sufficient gains from a common currency, with the benefits to be a mere 0.5% of EU GDP in the mid-80s, while other authors put this figure at 1%. Ireland trades primarily outside the common currency area. Mr. Nava's view was that "the undoubted benefits achievable for the single market" through the effects of the single currency are probably "not enough to justify the endeavour of renouncing the national currency". Was that a consideration at the time? The euro project is doubted in Mr. Nava's book, published in 2005. We have had a single currency since 1999 and the nation was still in charge. In Mr. Nava's opinion, the benefits of a single currency were small. Could Ireland have solved the problems itself during that period?