"The stockbroking and investment community has jumped most of the hurdles already," says Mr John Keilthy, chief operating officer at NCB Stockbrokers, of the euro's introduction next year.

Since January 4th, 1999, all stocks listed on the Irish exchange have been quoted and traded in euros. The stock market's adoption of the euro, one of the first steps in the changeover process, was accomplished with surprising ease and most investors are well used to dealing in euros.

Settlement, too, has moved to take account of the single currency, with brokers providing clients with data in both currencies.

The impact on investment decisions has already been felt. Irish fund managers have been busy reweighting their investment portfolios to take account of the Republic's membership of the euro zone over the past two years.

This has involved significantly lowering their holdings of Irish shares to better reflect the Irish stock market's weighting in the euro zone.

Most have reduced their exposure to the Irish economy and Irish stocks from more than 30 per cent to below 20 per cent. They have a little further to go to get to the desired level of 10 per cent plus of Irish equities but market sources say the bulk of the move has been completed and diverting inflows to European equities should largely finish the process for them.

Meanwhile, retail investors have also responded to the creation of a single currency zone for stocks. Many have taken advantage of the absence of currency risk to invest in euro-zone shares, particularly blue-chip stocks.

But one area where the euro has not had the anticipated impact is in equity market consolidation. Dire predictions that there would be no place for national bourses in the new world of the euro and expectations that a single electronic marketplace would emerge have not been realised.