Professor John McHale:

OMT is an enigma. As Deputy Creighton said, it appears to have been effective in bringing down bond yields. However, no one really knows how it would work in practice. The ECB seems to be happy keeping people guessing. It is designed for a more systemic crisis and seems to be focused on the problems in Italy where a bailout programme would not work because it is too large. If Italy got into trouble, one can see the problem spreading which could affect Ireland. The guidelines state that in order to access OMT a member state needs to be in a programme or be part of precautionary programme. This would protect us against risk even though OMT has not been designed with a country like Ireland in mind.