Ireland may leave the EU if the UK does

The head of Ireland's business lobby group, IBEC, has told a German newspaper that Ireland may leave the EU if the UK does.

Danny McCoy told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the UK could become very attractive outside the EU for multinationals based in Ireland and said "I'm not so sure if EU membership would be all that important for Irish multinationals".

He then went on to tell the Irish Times:

Everybody says Britain will lose out by leaving - all based on the assumption that somehow Britain's decision to leaves would be very costly for them.

There's only one concrete example of this kind in the past. That was in relation to Britain's decision to stay out of the euro. Britain was told: "If you don't go into euro, London as a financial capital would be diminished."

This never materialised and the City of London financial market had strengthened in the period since the single currency was introduced.

So why should similar threats in relation to Brexit be as clear?