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OPINION:A LOT of attention has been paid to Irish financial and economic problems recently. They are indeed serious. Ireland has been a huge beneficiary of the global financial boom in recent years. That it has ended means a genuine adjustment on a large scale, not just some cyclical downswing followed by a rapid recovery. The world’s financial sector will be smaller in future, because the world’s borrowers have too much debt already: the volume of new loans could be minimal for years, as many people need to repay debt, not take on more.

That means fewer bankers and less need for banking activity, apart from those convenient “holes in the wall”. And Ireland, even more than Britain, is a country that has disproportionately benefited from the financial boom, and therefore has most to give up now it is ended.