Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will move on to the impact of Brexit in the medium to long term way as opposed to the immediate impact, with regard to the nature of the economy and the danger the Irish economy could become even more imbalanced or reliant on finance in the aftermath of Brexit.

Does Professor Lane agree that this is a danger? It was reported in the Financial Timesthat the Central Bank received approximately 100 applications from financial firms to move here and, as of January, 27 were definitely moving from London to Dublin. The Government sees it as a big success that it is attracting firms in competition with other European Union states. The danger is that we are doubling down on our reliance on a substantially outsized financial sector, which has been referred to "Panama on the Liffey". The dynamic of what Nick Shaxson called the "finance curse" - which is similar to the "oil curse" - will be to drive deregulation in the sector, which will then flow into the domestic sector as happened in the run-up to 2007-2008. The result will be a hollowed-out economy and a huge reliance on a sector that is not productive in Ireland. The number of jobs in the sector is not commensurate with other parts of the economy and there are real dangers of an imbalance in a post-Brexit scenario.