Our production arrangements are already well in hand. In recent years we have invested more than £ million in new plant and machinery. Coin production is under way since last autumn; we plan to begin the production of euro banknotes in April. We must provide, for our own initial needs, almost 200 million euro notes and over 900 million coins.
We also must maintain an adequate supply of Irish notes and coin up to the end of next year. Despite the competition from electronic money, the demand for notes and coin continues to well exceed the growth in the economy. There have been some reports in recent months about a shortage of coin. There are 2,400 million coins in circulation.