Economic Consequences for Ireland

This chapter has considered how the withdrawal of the UK from the EU might impact key economic areas, namely trade, energy and foreign direct investment. In doing so it has attempted to quantify these effects, which was achieved using estimates from the literature, under the assumption that the UK will not retain the same free access to the EU market but will be allowed access to the EU market under a free trade agreement similar to those already in place between the EU and other countries. Such an outcome may well turn out to be the worst-case scenario, which implies that the likely effect may be considerably smaller. Furthermore, the estimates used to calculate the impacts are derived using statistical methods and thus subject to statistical variation. Given these caveats, the calculations should therefore not be taken as exact impacts, but rather as rough indications of the possible worst outcome.