What is a crisis in Greece is an opportunity for Seamus Fahy 1,700 miles away in Dublin.

Fahy is offering a 15 percent discount for Greeks who want to store cash and valuables at Merrion Vaults, where 3,000 deposit boxes are protected underground in Dublin’s city center. He says he’s had about 20 Greek customers in recent months as concern mounted about how long the nation could stay in the euro region.

 

“If you lived in Athens, and had 200,000 euros, wouldn’t you try to get it out?” asks Fahy, a diamond dealer who opened the vaults in 2013, just off one of the city’s main Georgian-era squares, close to the Irish prime minister’s complex in Dublin.

 

Seamus Fahy

 

Fahy may not be the only one benefiting from the woes of Greece, which on Monday imposed capital controls and shuttered banks as it prepares for a referendum that may risk its exit from the euro. The Greek turmoil provides Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s centrist coalition fodder in its election showdown within the year with Sinn Fein, Ireland’s version of Greece’s governing party, Syriza.

 

“Sinn Fein thought that Syriza could be a flagship for changing policies at an EU level,” said Niamh Hardiman, a professor of politics at University College Dublin. “That’s not happening.”

 

Read the whole article at Bloomberg