When the euro was being invented 20 years ago, one of the central criticisms by Eurosceptics was that a single currency was possible only if individual nations surrendered their sovereignty. The people who issued these warnings were dismissed as cranks, madmen and embittered losers. The tragic – there is no other word – fate of Ireland this week shows how prophetic they were. It cannot be denied that Ireland has lost its status as a sovereign nation. Thanks to its disastrous entanglement with the euro, it has lost any independence in domestic, foreign and above all economic policy. The Irish nation is the creature of Brussels and the European Central Bank.