The prospect of falling interest rates will please borrowers but is likely to worry the Central Bank and the Government for fear that it would encourage inflationary pressures in the middle of an economic boom. For all concerned, it is a sharp reminder of how intimately Ireland is now involved with trends in the international economy.
Relations with other European currencies, notably the deutschmark and sterling, are determining factors in the transition to currency union in 1999. The pound's recent strength within the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), which has brought it towards the very top of the permitted bands, is attributed to the recent bad news about employment in Germany, which has brought the deutschmark down in value against the dollar and sterling. Ireland's business cycle is closer to the Anglo American than the Franco German one, although the recent "long period of growth demonstrates considerable autonomy from either of them. Both the dollar and sterling have strengthened as a result of good underlying economic performance, which has attracted a flow of funds from Japan and elsewhere. Sterling tends to follow the dollar and the pound is affected by this relationship, especially when the respective business cycles are so out of kilter with one another.
Ireland's performance within the ERM therefore reflects not only interdependence with the British economy a continuing fact of life in these islands but the extraordinary and unprecedented rate of growth here over the past number of years. Contradictory trends are involved, between the higher interest rates that would be required to prevent inflationary pressure in the economy and the lower ones needed to bring down the currency's buoyancy. Managing policy is very tricky for the Government and the Central Bank, both determined to steer Ireland towards qualifying for monetary union in a year's time. But compared to most other governments in the European Union they are dealing with problems of relative economic success rather than with the sluggish performance and growing unemployment that threaten to overwhelm the French and German governments as they steer towards the same goal.
All this uncertainty adds volatility to the system - precisely what the single currency is intended to avoid. And since currency movements are determined principally by underlying economic performance and convergence, it is not surprising that questions should be raised at this juncture about whether the single currency project is sustainable in these circumstances.
Until this latest round of turbulence, the markets have tended to assume that political determination among the main EU partners would ensure it will start on time and according to plan. In the last week, speculative reports about contingency plans to phase in Italian membership of EMU until it has been more firmly established that the country can sustain it, have introduced new doubts; so has the dramatic news about German unemployment. As the Italian prime minister, Mr Prodi, pointed out in Rome yesterday, there could be just as much volatility if Italy is excluded from the first wave of currencies to join EMU. Before the year is out, there are likely to be many more such squalls on the currency markets and in the marketplace of politics as governments strive to qualify.