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The financier and businessman Emmett O’Connell, formerly of Aminex and Eglinton Oil and still successfully engaged in the international mining business, has long held the view that abolishing the Irish pound and joining the eurozone was the biggest policy error ever made by the Irish State. The Greek crisis and its drastic implications for the euro-currency, interwoven as it is with the crisis of the Irish public deficit and banks, seems to be confirming this daily before our eyes.

Linked below for your information is a facsimile of a pamphlet☚ which Emmett O’Connell wrote in 1972. It sets out why joining a European currency union would not be in Ireland’s best interests.

[Also linked below: a Podcast audio extract☚ of an interview with Mr. O’Connell by George Hook on this subject, on NewsTalk106fm, Monday 10th of May]

This was one of a number of pamphlets published at the time by the Common Market Study Group, of which the undersigned, the late Raymond Crotty and Mr Micheal O Loingsigh of Tralee were key members. The Common Market Study Group was the principal centre of intellectual criticism of Irish membership of the EEC in the Accession Referendum of May 1972. Central to such criticism was the belief that what was then called the Common Market was intended to lead on to a European Monetary and Political Union under the political hegemony of what Dr Garret FitzGerald recently termed “The Big Three” EU Member States – Germany, France and Britain – as has broadly been happening since.

Emmett O’Connell repeated his criticisms of EMU at the time of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty which led to the establishment of the euro and he has written occasional press articles on this and related economic topics over the years. The core of his argument is the section of his pamphlet setting out “The case for Sovereign Money” on pages 12-14, as well as pages 22-26. The validity of what he wrote then, he believes, is confirmed by the current crisis of the eurozone and the fact that Ireland is unable to restore its lost economic competitiveness because of the abolition of the Irish pound and with it our ability to have any control over either the currency exchange rate or interest rates with a view to maximising Irish development and employment.

• PDF file: The_Consequences_of_Monetary_Union_1972_Emmett-O-Connell The Consequences of Monetary Union and its Affect on Peripheral Regions (1972) – Emmett O’Connell☚
• Audio file: George Hook (”The Right Hook”: NewsTalk106fm) interviews Emmett O’Connell about the Consequences of Monetary Union☚ (time -14:15; format – M4a/Quicktime/iTunes; date – May 10, 2010);
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