In 1999, student Ian Clarke of Dundalk created the first software for peer-to-peer file sharing and made it freely available. Result: mounting chaos in the music, film and television industries as their content appeared online, people stopped paying for it and copyright became meaningless. Current cost: €60 billion a year in the EU, €75 billion a year in the US and €100 billion a year in lost taxes across the G20.
In 1995, Irish diplomat Peter Sutherland changed the name of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to the much catchier World Trade Organisation, earning himself headlines as “the father of globalisation”. Result: an obscure technical process caught the attention of every paranoid nutter. Cost: holding up a 1 per cent tariff cut by one year blocks €110 billion of trade.
In 1969, Gerry Adams of West Belfast took exception to certain local government arrangements. Cost over the next 30 years: €300 billion.
In 1826, Aeneas Coffey of Dublin perfected the distillation process, delivering 95 per cent pure alcohol from grain. Current worldwide cost of alcohol abuse: 4 per cent of all deaths and €400 billion a year (minus profits from alcohol).
In 1999, Dublin technology firm Aldiscon, which invented the mobile phone text message, was sold to a British company for £51 million. Its Belfast division, which invented mobile phone internet connectivity, was sold the same year to a US firm for £150 million. Annual global revenue from both technologies today: €370 billion.