BREXIT: what it means to you
THE decision by UK voters to wave ta-ra to Europe did not come as a shock to IRD Duhallow, CEO Maura Walsh, who is well versed on European matters.
Ms Walsh told The Corkman that she “quite expected” the result and said that the exit campaign spoke to the “plain and normal people” while the remain side only spoke to the elite in society.
However, Ms Walsh said that the exit campaign” stirred up a lot of fear in people” and it really struck a chord with them as it was primarily built around immigration.
Overall, it was her firm view that the exit move will ultimately be a very bad decision for the UK, but for Ireland it will throw up challenges but equally so opportunities.
It’s expected that a lot of businesses in the UK including banking institutions, in order to stay part of the EU, will expand operating subsidiaries or even re-domicile to Ireland. There are big US banks based in the UK such as JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.
A major attraction to Ireland is its generous tax system which attracted foreign companies long before the idea of a Brexit. The corporate tax rate is among the lowest in the developed world, at 12.5 percent for trading income, and 25 percent for non-trading income.
Ms Walsh there is “huge potential for Cork” to benefit from Brexit. She said banking institutions will be looking for “a fast exit especially out of the city of London” and could very possibly look at Cork, Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt as being an ideal regions to re-locate. In relation to Cork, Ms Walsh said it has the infrastructure and is well positioned and the people are educated. She said if a bank did re-locate from London it could mean an exit of 2,000 employees out of the city of London.
With regards to agriculture and in particular with the sterling continuing to tank, Ms Walsh was of the view that it would be somewhat topsy -turvy for a while. But she pointed out what Ireland has in spades is its premium products.
“We have premium products selling in premium stores. If, for an example an open corned beef sandwich is selling in the premium store of Selfridges for £15, for those people who buy that premium product, they will still pay £16.50 for it after Brexit. A premium product will always hold the edge especially for people who have a lot of money. Our agricultural produce is certainly one of the best in the world,” she said.
However, while in the UK they are reeling from the exit result, which Ms Walsh believes will occur a lot faster than the two year timeframe and she believes the UK will be gone after one year. This could certainly ring true as on Tuesday the European Parliament asked Britain to hurry up and leave.
“In this country we all recently celebrated the centenary of the Rising and it is my firm view that by the end of 2016, I can see the nail in the coffin of the British empire. Scotland will look for and I believe will get Independence and I can also see a referendum in the north,” she said.
With regards to the European Commission, Ms Walsh said it has always been very generous towards Ireland, but when it comes to the Council of Ministers then it’s a far different story.
In the Council, government ministers from each EU country meet to discuss, amend and adopt laws, and coordinate policies. The ministers have the authority to commit their governments to the actions agreed on in the meetings. Together with the European Parliament , the Council is the main decision-making body of the EU.
She said the Council of Ministers ultimately “hold all the power” and have the upper hand .
“This is particularly so for us in this country as the Council of Ministers gave 93% funding to Agriculture but Leader only got 7% of funding. That is why in Cork the Leader budget was cut by a shocking 70%,” she said.