Dr. Donal Donovan:

I will respond to three specific points made by Deputy Higgins. First, it is right for him to point out the uncertainty and fragility of these forecasts. He might have put it a little more colourfully than I would but there is a lot of truth in what the Deputy said. There is huge uncertainty about this and things could turn out one way or an entirely different way. This should be recognised more than it often is in public debate. Often the Department of Finance will signal that its forecasts are dependent on other factors but unfortunately, many in the media who take up the issue remove the first half of the sentence which contains the qualifications and simply say that the Government is forecasting 3% growth for next year and so forth. In that context, I am very much in agreement with Deputy Higgins. We simply do not know for sure and we should be more humble about not knowing.

The second point concerns what Mr. Ashoka Mody and others have said about austerity.