Are we all living on German money?

HAS anyone noticed lately that the notes being issued by Irish banks mostly seem to come from Germany?

Some may know the euro banknotes in your pocket can be identified by the letter before the number on the notes. For instance, a ‘T’ means the bank note had been printed in Ireland, ‘U’ for France, ‘V’ for Spain, ‘S’ for Italy, ‘P’ for Netherlands, ‘Y’ for Greece, ‘Z’ for Belgium, and so on (14 different EU countries circulate their own printed euro-notes).

Recently I drew some €50 banknotes from my bank, and noticed that all of them were printed in Germany — with an ‘X’ before each note’s identity number. Looking through some other lesser value banknotes in my wallet, I found one from Greece, three from Spain (probably brought back by Irish returned tourists), and not one banknote that had been printed in Ireland.

When checking with some of my friends and colleagues this week, not one had an Irish-printed banknote in their possession. I wonder why this might be? Does anyone have an answer?

Tom Baldwin

Aghada

Midleton

Co Cork