I would have thought that, after a decade in which our growth performance has been the best in the OECD area (with a couple of minor 1 exceptions), most of the pessimism should have receded, but I doubt that it has. In order to assist in this process, I would like to recall some facts before moving on to discuss the arguments.
Through the 1980s and into the 1990s Irish interest rates were kept far too high as a result of market pessimism. In effect, the Irish government was paying lenders over the odds to compensate them for currency risks on a scale which never materialized and which the government knew would not materialize.