Sterling takes a hammering

The owner of Dundalk Bureau de Change in Park Street, Terry Boyle, has a link on his smart phone to the money markets.

The site shows the minute-to-minute fluctuations in sterling’s value on the world’s currency markets. It happens to be on his desk on Monday morning when he speaks to the Argus about his thoughts on Brexit.

It makes for a frightening illustration of the volatility of the fall-out of Thursday’s vote in Britain to leave the EU. In the 15 minutes speaking to him, sterling goes from £1.24 to £1.19 and back to £1.20 at the end of the conversation. The Brexit vote was ‘unbelievable’, said Mr Boyle, who added: ‘ The more you listen to it, the more confusing it gets’.

He revealed his bureaux had their busiest three days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in seven years of business in the wake of the Brexit vote. ‘ No-one has a clue what’s going to happen. I don’t think the voters realised what they were voting for; they didn’t know the consequences’.

Looking at the currency fluctuations ‘can be nerve-racking’, Mr Boyle said, ‘ you don’t know what’s going to happen in an hour’s time. As I’m speaking to you, sterling is losing its value. It’s hard to quote people any more’.

And he is concerned for the wider Dundalk business community. He said: ‘Over the last couple of years, I would see businesspeople coming here to get increasing amounts of sterling from their tills changed. Northern people were coming here to shop but as sterling gets cheaper to buy, more people will be tempted to go North’.

On a brighter note, Mr Boyle says he doesn’t think ‘ the British government will follow the result through’. He said: ‘ They may need to take a page out of the Irish government’s book and run the referendum again to get the ‘right’ result’.