2015
Pictured l-r at Riddel Hall on 31 March ahead of Governor Patrick Honohan’s address on ‘Sterling, Punt, Euro: Currency Choices in Ireland Past and Present’, were: Dr Anthony McDonnell; Governor Patrick Honohan; Professor Paul Teague; Professor John Turner; Professor Tony Gallaghe
Almost 200 people were in attendance at Riddel Hall on the evening of 31 March to hear Professor Patrick Honohan speak about currency choices in Ireland past and present.
The event was hosted jointly by the Centre for Irish Business and Economic Performance in the Queen’s Management School and the Chief Executives’ Club at Queen’s.
Governor Honohan gave a very informative address entitled ‘Sterling, Punt, Euro: Currency Choices in Ireland Past and Present’. In his lecture, he assessed Ireland’s experience with the euro against previous alternatives, illustrating currency and interest rate fluctuations over the years with a number of graphs and charts. He outlined how the financial crisis had certainly highlighted weaknesses in the European economic and monetary union, but that previous currency arrangements had not been trouble-free either. Governor Hohohan suggested that focussing on domestic policy issues is what is needed to ensure that Ireland can reach its full potential in the euro area.
Patrick Honohan was appointed as the tenth Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland on 26 September 2009. Before his appointment, Patrick was Professor of International Financial Economics and Development at Trinity College Dublin. Prior to this, he spent almost a decade at the World Bank where he was Senior Advisor on financial sector policy. He was previously Research Professor with the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin (1990-98), Economic Advisor to Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald (1981-82 and 1984-86) and he spent several years as an economist at the Central Bank of Ireland (1976-81 and 1984-86), and at the International Monetary Fund (1971-73).
A graduate of University College Dublin, he received his PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1978. He has taught Economics at the LSE and at the University of California-San Diego, the Australian National University and University College Dublin, as well as at Trinity College. In recent years, his research has mainly focused on monetary and financial sector policy.