Ireland is a small, open economy which lies between two of the world’s biggest trading blocs, the United States and the EU. 

Small, in trading terms, means that it exports more than it has to import to serve the population. This is good, it means it has a trade surplus and sells more than it has to buy in. 

Open, in trading terms, means it has access to global markets, to buy at competitive prices and sell to a huge number of people. It also means that what happens in the world economy at large, matters at home. 

In Ireland today, as it battles Covid19, Government needs to borrow to support all the employees who can’t work at the moment and employers who can’t open for business but want to keep their otherwise viable companies alive.

 If it borrows without thinking too far ahead, there’s a risk we will all be paying for it for years to come and another decade of austerity awaits. It’s a fine balance. 

For Stephen Kinsella, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Limerick, these are the issues he spends his life examining and has been an advisor to Government as it makes economic decisions we will live with for the coming years. 

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