1. EU Influences on the Irish Economy

2. EU membership has had a huge impact on the Irish economy since 1973.
The neo-colonial link to Britain has been broken – economic independence means that Ireland no longer relies on Britain for the majority of imports / exports.
Access to the EU market has attracted huge amounts of foreign direct investment from MNCs.
The huge transfer of funds (money) from the EU to Ireland (€46 billion between 1973 and 2001) has raised Irish GNP by 4% and brought huge improvements to the infrastructure.
EU laws and regulations have improved safety, environments etc in Ireland.

3. Negative effects include:
The loss of control of some of the natural resources - e.g. Fish stocks.
Collapse of many small manufacturing industries due to the removal of tariffs and quotas in the free-trade markets e.g. Textiles, food processing.

4. The major influences on the Irish economy include:
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
Transfer of funds – e.g. Structural funds, cohesion funds.