ICMSA: Leaving euro the best option
However, Mr Kenny said he did not agree with the call by Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association president Jackie Cahill.
The Taoiseach said: “My belief is that European leadership has all the flexibility in the tools available to it to deal with the structural problems that are in the eurozone and the euro.
“I believe in the euro, the future of the eurozone, and in the future of the European Union. And it is against that background that we will continue to make contribution to this debate.”
Mr Cahill, addressing the association’s AGM, said the choice between leaving or remaining in the eurozone would not be easy. But it seemed obvious that there were circumstances in which the best option for could be to leave. He noted that a large proportion of Ireland’s trade is with countries outside the eurozone.
“At present, 37% of our exports are to the UK and the US with 44% of imports coming from similar countries. Even these figures, significant as they are, underestimate the importance of the US dollar in our trade.
“This is particularly the case in pharmaceuticals and our own sector of food, which in aggregate account for 66% of our total exports.”
He said it was widely accepted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had indicated her country would be pushing for changes in the European treaty.
“These changes will effectively mean the surrender of what sovereign fiscal and budgetary powers that remain to us and their centralisation at EU level.”
He said any referendum on the issue would most likely fail.
He described the European Commission-proposed base year of 2014 for the single farm payment as a recipe for disaster.
He said it would increase the cost of land to active farmers, lead to more land being underutilised and resulting in a larger part of the payment going to non-active farmers.
