[ former chair of the us federal reserve ben ] bernanke has a good answer to this issue of distorting the markets, which is to say that purchases by the central bank of government securities with different maturities have exactly the same impact as a change in maturities done by the treasury itself. the public sector always impacts the yield curve, one way or the other. the idea is that if the central bank uses an active policy to do so, then it ’ s to correct distortions that exist in financial markets and ensure that lending rates to businesses and households in the economy as a whole are at the right level to get to the level of activity that would be desirable. if there are rigidities and distortions in the private sector that do not engineer the smooth functioning of the economy, then public intervention is fully justified. it does not add up to manipulation because the reality is not perfect to start with. i ’ m just now thinking in very abstract terms ; this was never discussed at the ecb ’ s governing council. this is my personal take on possibilities ; it is not more than that. we didn ’ t start any discussion about the medium - term future of monetary policy, it ’ s too soon in europe to start thinking about that. but i ’ ll just say it ’ s a possibility and it can work. we could buy more bonds to enforce it – the 33 % 1 / 8 bis central bankers'speeches limit [ that the ecb has on buying all of the outstanding stock of a country ’ s government bonds ] is a self - binding decision by the governing council. that decision could be slightly changed, theoretically, of course. what about the use of the other non - standard measures? there is a view that some of the tools, such as the outright monetary transactions ( omt ) programme, are closely linked with the current ecb leadership and not as much with the ecb itself. it ’ s important to underline that the unconventional measures that we used – all of them are now part of the ecb toolkit. so in the future, if ever we face again stressful situations in the euro area, the ecb would have no excuse not to use such instruments to stabilise the situation. that i wanted to repeat : it would be virtually impossible, if such a stressful situation occurred again, for the ecb to ignore that these instruments are effective, legal and part of the toolkit. people are important of course, but

small open economies – vulnerabilities in a changing world - deputy governor sharon donnery 13 september 2019 speech speaking at the dublin economics workshop 2019, wexford. good afternoon, it is a pleasure to be here speaking at the dublin economics workshop today, and i especially welcome the topic of this panel small open economies – vulnerabilities in a changing world. 1 the concept of openness has perhaps never been so pertinent. until recently, the world was broadly becoming more open, tariffs and capital controls were being eased or removed entirely. ten years ago it would have been hard to imagine the rising protectionist sentiment, and indeed actions we see in parts of the world today and the pressures on multilateralism. and while not the focus of my remarks today, this reflects that globalisation or openness can come at a cost, leading to more competition and so creating winners and losers. this can cause higher unemployment and reduce wages in affected sectors. 2 indeed it does seem at times that some of the merits of economic openness have been all but forgotten. however, historically, the opening of markets has been closely linked with improved economic performance. creating new benefits and opportunities for people, workers and businesses. open economies tend to grow faster than relatively closed ones, lowering prices and providing jobs. 3 * * * turning to home, ireland offers an example of a small economy that benefits greatly from openness. ireland went from being one of the poorer members of the european union on joining to, today, being one of the most prosperous. the first part of my remarks will focus on the benefits to ireland of being a highly globalised economy. while the second part will look at the vulnerability of the irish economy due to its openness. finally, i will reflect on what we can do as a central bank to build resilience to the vulnerabilities associated with being small, open and highly globalized. * * * openness - breaking down barriers today, the irish economy is one of the most open economies in the world for trade and finance. migration has also played a crucial role in the recent economic peaks and troughs. it is therefore worthwhile to recall that it wasn ’ t until the late 1950 ’ s that heralded the end of protectionism in ireland. 4 at that time, ireland ’ s largely agricultural - based economy was characterized by its dependence on the uk. t. k whitaker, senior public servant and former central bank governor, often referred to as the “