He is advocating a two-pronged strategy:

(1)That Ireland walk away from the EU-IMF deal (a notion that is, of course, attracting a lot of favourable media comment) and;

(2)that, in order to be able to pay its way in the absence of funds from the EU-IMF, Ireland should immediately eliminate its budget deficit (a drastic notion that, equally predictably, is being ignored in the same media comment).

While I favour speeding up the adjustment, doing it all in one year would be impossibly disruptive.

He claims that a strategy along these lines is needed because otherwise, he thinks, our debts are unsustainable. He bases this on pessimistic growth assumptions, which may or may not transpire. And he argues that a slow, messy bankruptcy would destroy an Irish economy that depends so much on international trust. Better, he argues, to do the whole job immediately.

There are a number of elements missing in Professor Kelly's analysis.

First, he does not consider the impact of what he is suggesting on other countries, and how they might react.