Days after Jack Chambers delivered his maiden budget speech in October, a letter landed in the Department of Finance’s letter box from the chief executive of Euroclear. It raised a now very familiar complaint. Valérie Urbain, chief of the settlement house, was protesting stamp duty in the Irish market. Euroclear has “consistently sought to be as supportive as it can be for the Irish market,” she wrote, particularly after Brexit, but “the current stamp duty requirements are causing considerable friction within the equity market ecosystem, creating a significant competitive disadvantage for EU-based CSDs [central securities depositories]”. Trades on the Irish…