The Republic of Ireland

Abstract

Excluding only Luxembourg, which is in any case linked to Belgium in the BLEU, the Republic of Ireland is in economic terms the smallest member country in the Community. Its GDP is under one- fiftieth that of the Community’s strongest member state, the Federal German Republic. Territorially it is as large as Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg combined, but its population of just over 3 millions is only one-eighth of theirs. The Republic is also a relatively new state compared to most of the others in the EEC and until the 1920s it had been a part of the United Kingdom. From the beginning it consisted of only 26 of the island’s 32 counties, since the ‘Six Counties’ of Ulster opted for continued membership of the United Kingdom (chapter 4). Many of the problems which the country has faced since independence stem from its very newness and from the fact that it was until recently part of a much larger state with a very different economic character from its own. They include general underdevelopment coupled with a particularly acute regional problem; the smallness of the total population and the high degree of dependence on the British economy allied with the fact that the ‘Six Counties’ of the north have remained a part of the United Kingdom.