There can be no doubt that the euro was a dumb idea. Iceland — outside the euro — has been able to make a modest recovery from its horrendous meltdown in 2008, but Ireland — inside the euro — is still stuck in the mire.

If Ireland had its own currency, it could let its currency fall and that would boost economic growth. (A cheaper currency helps a country sell its exports.) And if Ireland hadn't joined the euro in the first place, its problems wouldn't be so great.

The primary problem with the euro is that it means you can only have one interest rate across most of Europe. So when Ireland desperately needed a big interest rate rise to curb a massive property boom, it got very little and interest rates stayed too low. As a result, Irish banks lent too much money based on inflated property values. When the bubble eventually burst, the banks were in a right old mess.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the euro was the only cause of Ireland's problems. After all, Britain has had its own crisis and we stayed outside the euro. However, compared to Ireland we don't have as many empty property developments and our banks' problems didn't arise primarily from over-lending on UK property.

In other words, the euro made things much worse for Ireland than would otherwise have been the case.