In Search of The Pope's Children - Episode Three

Episode Three

McWilliams finished off the mini-series be stressing the issue of how heavily dependent Ireland's economy is on trade. It also discussed how Ireland has gone from being a country with too many people and not enough money to a country of not enough people and too much credit.

According to McWilliams Ireland's physical resources are dominating by the property industry, which forces most foreign investment into intellectually orientated industries. He claims that Ireland has been very lucky in the past; having strong ties to both other European countries and the United States. He then made the claim that 87% of Ireland's exports generated by multinational companies such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, Dell, Intel, and Google, implying that decisions made in New York boardrooms have a far greater effect on the Irish economy than decisions made in the Dáil.

The traditional plan for the future of the Irish economy is to become more and more merged with other European economies and form a single European economy. But McWilliams believes that Ireland has finished benefiting from EU membership. He predicts that Ireland might get a poor deal out of a future European economy, as the interest rates will probably rise dramatically. McWilliams suggested an alternative to the traditional plan he suggests that we should become less connected with the EU and perhaps create stronger links to China and other economies likely to overtake the Europe in the future.