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KERRY WILL JOIN the Irish border counties in bearing the worst of the economic fallout should the UK wind up with a ‘hard Brexit’ scenario.
Based on the census figures for 2016, business group Ibec has drawn up a list of the counties that have a high proportion of workers in industries most likely to be affected by the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
Ibec said that a number of sectors in Ireland, including agriculture, food and beverages, accommodation and tourism services, air and freight transport, and manufacturing, are exposed in the case of a hard Brexit, a scenario that would involve the UK leaving both the common market and the customs union.
Many of these industries have already begun to feel the strain from the devaluation in sterling after the EU exit vote.
Ibec said that counties near the Northern Irish border, including Cavan, Monaghan and Longford, have the highest levels of exposure, while Kerry is also heavily dependent on industries likely to be impacted by the fallout from the Brexit vote.
The counties with the highest proportion of their workforce in Brexit-affected industries are:
According to figures from Census 2016, roughly 243,000 Irish workers, who account for just over a tenth of the employed population, work in sectors likely to be affected by Brexit.
Rural areas are expected to bear a disproportionate burden of the fallout, while Dublin will be best insulated from Brexit-related trade declines.
Ibec also said Cork and Galway cities were two of the least-exposed areas to Brexit, as well as the counties surrounding Dublin, such as Louth, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow.
Cork has the highest numbers of jobs in the ‘Brexit-exposed’ sectors, with 28,000 workers across the industries, however this figure still represents less than 14.5% of employment in the county.
Brexit slowdown
Recent figures have shown that UK visitors to Irish shores are in decline with the weaker pound, although booming transatlantic traffic has still pushed overall tourist numbers higher.
In total, British residents took around 1.44 million trips to the Republic between January and May of this year – down about 7% on the same five-month period in 2016.
Meanwhile, a joint report from InterTradeIreland and the ESRI recently outlined the ramifications a hard Brexit could have on the agriculture and drinks industry.
It said the worst-case scenario could result in exports of food and beverage manufacturing to the UK plummeting by 45% to €2.1 billion annually.
Ireland’s total food and beverage manufacturing turnover is €27 billion, with some €4.6 billion coming from exports to the UK.
Written by Killian Woods and posted on Fora.ie
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Interest rates have reached a level that makes borrowing to grow employment giving investment impossible.
@thomas molloy: Interest rates have been much higher in the past. At one point in the 90s, rates were in the mid-teens.
The low interest rates we have experienced over the past decade or so are an anomaly, in historical terms.
They will claim that they have achieved their objective in that inflation has reduced. They cannot see that their hiking of rates contributed to the inflation rate rise.
@Pato: ehhhhhhhh no.
@Pato: Explain.because everyone else will disagree with you.
@Pato: Please do explain
@Donal McCarthy: I think Pato is largely correct.
Inflation can be caused by two things:
1) A shortage of some goods, or service
2) A surfeit of money in an economy
As I understand it, the inflation we experienced – and are still experiencing – was due to (a contrived) shortage. A shortage in energy, driving up fuel and electricity prices, which then fed into everything else. This was preceded by another shortage caused by the Corona virus pandemic shutting down lots of manufacturing, particularly in China – the so-called supply chain shortages.
The way to address inflation caused by too much money in the economy is to remove some of that money. Increasing interest rates is one way to do that.
However, increasing interest rates will not bring down the cost of electricity.
Or petrol.
When the (major) cause of our inflation is the profiteering of energy companies, increasing interest rates just puts more cost onto all of us, including businesses. Which can only recoup those additional costs by increasing their prices.
Which adds to inflation.
The best way to address such profiteering by the oil (and gas, and associated energy) companies would have been a windfall tax.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: pato stated that the interest rate rises caused the inflation which was incorrect. yes energy prices and supply chain issues were minor contributory factors, but the primary factor was 10 years of free money, which was then acclerated into turbo over drive during covid when physical money supply in the US and EU increased by near 50%. There were 50% more dollars/euros in peoples back accounts after covid then before covid. I do not believe we will see near zero interest rates for some time. I believe it will remain between 2-3% for the very reason that this new money had to be extracted out of the economy and it needs to stay there otherwise it will result in another cycle of inflation.
@Niall English: No, Pato did not say that.
Pato said that raising interest rates “contributed to the inflation rate rise.”
Which is correct, in my view.
Bitcoin fixes Central Bank Ponzi Schemes
@Snacktoshi Nachomoto: how?
@Snacktoshi Nachomoto: anyone who buys crypto currency is a fool and typically didn’t study business subjects in school. The government and central banks decide what Currency we use whether that may involve digital euro. Profiting from digital euro is foolish.
@Snacktoshi Nachomoto: I’m afraid you are not as well informed as you may think. Bitcoin is the real ponzi scheme.
@Snacktoshi Nachomoto: bitcoin is the currency of crooks
@Liam Clifden: but maybe the worst performing in 2022, so what’s your point??
@Liam Clifden: Actually that’s a lie, xrp has preformed better than bitcoin and that’s with a court case hanging over it head, xrp is up over 50 percent from its bottom this year, bitcoin isn’t up over 50 percent from its bottom this year,
@Liam Clifden: bitcoin has zero intrinsic value. people like yourself are pursuant to the greater f00l theory. in order to profit, you need to find a bigger f00l to buy it at a higher price.
Control the money control the people
Great news. And well done central bankers. A solid victory over the ever populist economists.
@Itwaslikethatwhenigothere:
I don’t think you’re correct in relation to a windfall tax. Windfall taxes do nothing to protect against profiteering, they simply allow the state to increase their tax take.
Consider this. Company A usually makes profits of €100m and pays 12.5% tax on this. So they net 87.5m
Now they increase their prices and their income doubles to €200m – the government introduce a windfall tax of 20% on profits in excess of 100m so they now net 87.5m on the first 100m and 80m on the second 100m – net profits have increased to 167.5m – why would that entice them to reduce prices?
Even if the windfall tax was 50% – there is still no incentive to reduce as 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. The only winner here is the exchequer.
If you want to limit profiteering then a price cap is the only way it could work. Windfall taxes are ineffectual.
@Liam Clifden: Bernie Madoffs Ponzi scheme was running for 17 years…
Happy Christmas from the European Central Bank
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