Irish person, for instance, gives money to extremely polite Australian (8)
I believe the answer is:
european
'irish person for instance' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.
'money to extremely polite australian' is the wordplay.
'money' becomes 'euro' (currency of the Eurozone).
'to extremely polite australian' becomes 'pean' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'euro'+'pean'='EUROPEAN'
'gives' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for european that I've seen before include "Relating to the continent" , "Native of a continent" , "Citizen of the Union" , "Continental inhabitant" , "possibly from Italy" .)