Mr. David McWilliams:

The first time I worried about the way Ireland's economy might deal with a crisis was during the currency crisis in the Central Bank in 1992. I was working as an economist in the department that was dealing with the European Union and the putative European Central Bank, as it became.

I was always amazed at the extent to which the people on the inside denied reality. The beauty about Ireland is that if a currency is overvalued, one can see it not in outflows of money but in the length of the queues of Toyota Corollas at Sainsbury's in Newry to buy cheap Harp for Christmas. Deputy Doherty will know this as someone from Letterkenny. If the Irish currency is overvalued relative to sterling, the currency of our major trading partner, Irish people go across the Border to buy stuff. We have a living economic experiment in Dundalk, Letterkenny and Lifford. During the currency crisis I pointed out to one of our bosses who was claiming there would be no crisis or devaluation that the Irish Independentwas reporting on these queues of punters, although they were probably driving Ford Escorts rather than Toyota Corollas at the time. I got the impression that sometimes when one was inside, one was being dictated to by the tyranny of one's own peer group. If one's peer group consists of the fellows one meets in Brussels, conversations might not reflect the country one is supposed to be discussing. I refer to that psychology in a book called The Good Room.