I'm no econonomist (as my German cousin says), but I can see that they idea starting a brand new currency now would the craziest decision our government has ever made. How can anyone think it is logical. There would be no confidence in such a currency, especially in these economic conditions and it would become worthless quite rapidly. The Euro has not run as smoothly as hoped but we are in it now and there is no going back. The Euro is not the reason why the economic crisis hit Ireland harder than the likes of France and Germany. The reason it happened to us is because of how our government decided to
deal with the boom and the crash and, as we all know, because our whole economic boom was based up one industry. Property. In Germany, not only is property far less important to the economy, primarily because far more people rent for their whole lives, but also because German has several other very successful industries. Even when one industry had some trouble (the car industry), they still had huge electronic/household/DIY/technology industries and engineering industry. And through all of that the economy picked up again fairly quickly.