‘Honohan is the serene voice of reason amid hysteria of economic advice’

‘He believes there is a realisation that Eire saved the euro’

DEFAULT! Stuff the IMF! Burn the bondholders! There is no end to the level of high-energy, excitable advice for the incoming Government when it comes to sorting out Ireland’s economic woes. Most of that advice is simplistic and ill informed and tends to be offered in bombastic tones that makes for good sound bites but little sound sense.

Amid all of this white noise sits the serene, poised Patrick Honohan, governor of the Irish Central Bank and economic adviser to successive governments dating back to Garret FitzGerald’s time as taoiseach in the mid 1980s.