Prosperity is in part an inside job but we lack political will to reform

THERE is much lamentation among people marching that they were too young to vote in the referendum on the 8th Amendment to the Constitution in 1983. It is a greater pity so few remember the 48-hour rule introduced in 1987 by Ray MacSharry. He brought in a regulation, to staunch cross-border shopping, that you had to be in Northern Ireland for 48 hours before you could import duty-free into the Republic. It was a desperate measure, in a desperate situation. It was also deemed illegal under EU law. It is, however, a foretaste of things to come. In part, they have already arrived.
In 1982, the relative strength of sterling meant that an Irish punt was worth only a modest 80 pence in Britain. In 1988 a weaker sterling meant the punt could buy 85 pence across the Irish Sea, and across the border in Northern Ireland. Jonesborough, Co Armagh became a shopping paradise for cavalcades of buses from the Republic. All along the border, small towns in Northern Ireland, their petrol stations and supermarkets, became a Mecca for shoppers carrying their punts into the United Kingdom.