Time to abandon the failed eurozone project

CENTRAL Bank governor Patrick Honohan needs to get artist Robert Ballagh to design a new set of Irish bank notes fast — Ireland has to abandon the euro to secure its future.

Four austerity budgets and a punitive and damaging bailout have reduced Ireland’s sovereign debt to junk status. How many businesses have to fail? How far must house prices fall? How many talented people have to emigrate? How much misery has to be inflicted on families before the message gets through?

Our attempts to salvage credibility and stability have been inimical to the cultivation of both. It’s not working; it’s over. Ireland needs a new start. We need to have our own currency to do this. We really should have started on a different trajectory two years ago. The case was argued in these pages on several occasions. But it’s never too late to do the right thing. The eurozone is now being held together by collective denial, stubbornness and hubris. The spread of this, however, to other structurally vulnerable countries — most recently Italy — was entirely foreseeable.