For example, it has to take account inter alia of the state of the business cycle; it will be important to ensure that, if needed, such flexibility is fully exploited in Ireland’s case.3 The scope for operational flexibility helps reassure me that signing up to the Treaty has been the safer alternative for Ireland.
For the Government to have done otherwise would have been to turn our back on a framework of European cooperation at the heart of what has been – despite the recent reversals – Ireland’s very considerable economic progress over the past four decades.