Dr. Tom Healy:

Briefly, there is no direct link between the possibility of a Brexit - a UK exit - and TTIP, but there is one area where Ireland is very vulnerable which is in terms of foreign direct investment. Depending on the final outcome of the discussion on Brexit, the location of financial services but more generally pharma and IT services which underpin such a huge number of jobs in Ireland could be impacted profoundly by all of these factors. Less important, perhaps, is the detail of how companies here trade with other jurisdictions than the overall level of political and economic stability in Europe. It strikes me that the important emphasis needs to be put on a vision for Europe and understanding how a game changer can transform the European economy and society. I fear somehow that in the absence of a coherent vision and strategy reminiscent of what underlay the European vision in the 1950s and 1960s, the emphasis has been put unduly on a narrow programme of structural reform aided by an opening up to trade and investment, as in the case of TTIP, without a sufficient emphasis on the social dimension. This is having a profound effect on European debate. Brexit is in some ways symptomatic of the lack of cohesion which needs to be addressed. That is a wider problem perhaps to come back to at another date.