Sean Barrett (Independent)
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He was one of the people who saw this happening. As he knows, people like Professor Barry Eichengreen saw the euro as being designed for France, Germany and some northern European countries. He actually said that he was quite surprised that "Ireland, Spain, and other countries at the periphery of the European Union were among the founding members of the euro area". In the scenario that Professor Lane draws, his final remark at the end of page 12 reads: "A central bank that is not bound by a fixed exchange rate commitment can forestall such unnecessary crises by acting as a 'lender of last resort'." Was it a problem in September 2008 that there were design faults in the euro, that we had not really thought out the consequences of membership and that, reverting to Deputy O'Donnell's question on ELA, we were totally unprepared because we had not worked out the implications, as Professor Lane warned in 2006 and other economists warned when we joined the euro?