Whether the UK should hold a referendum on continued membership of the European Union (EU) is one of the issues in its general election to be held in May 2015. A possible British withdrawal, or Brexit, would have profound implications for Ireland and particularly for its agri-food sector, given...

Conventional estimates of the economic contribution of agriculture and the agri-food sector suggest that the overall sector still accounts for around 10% of total employment, GNP and exports, even after the structural changes brought about by the Celtic Tiger economy in the 1990s. These...

This paper examines the impact of the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease on the Irish economy using IMAGE, a CGE model of the Irish economy. The direct impacts on the tourism sector, the agricultural sector and on government finances are identified and their overall consequences for the...

This paper examines recent changes in EU agricultural policy and its implementation in Ireland and asks whether the changes made encourage a more sustainable agriculture in Ireland in line with the objectives of the Rio UN Conference on the Environment and Development. It argues that the Agenda...

This paper was prepared for an Environmental Protection Agency consultation on Sustainable Development Research priorities, held in Dublin, 12 November 2003. 

Not only has development assistance overall been falling in volume terms, but the share of this ODA going to improving agriculture and nutrition in developing countries has also fallen. This paper investigates the reasons for the declining commitment of donors to these areas and whether this can...

This paper reviews the demands of developing countries in the new round of WTO agricultural negotiations which began in Geneva in March 2000 based on the submissions to the Special Session up to November 2000. Two issues of principle are identified. The first is the developing country demand for...

Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) were introduced as a new market access instrument in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. The purpose of this paper is to examine the case for using this instrument to target improved market access for developing country agricultural exports, using the EU as a...

This paper employs a panel regression analysis using county-level data to quantify the relative importance of competing forestry and agricultural policy incentives in explaining trends in private afforestation in Ireland. It concludes that an increase in the level of up front payments to...