Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have three questions which I will put quickly. The pharmaceutical sector amounts to 25% of our exports and the slide presentation shows that exports have reduced by 4%. This is one of the reasons the Department has downgraded the economic forecast for this year. We all knew that the patent cliff was happening. How did the Department underestimate the size of the patent cliff? I refer to our discussion about the growth in joblessness. The CSO figures show that something could be wrong, that the figures for either economic growth or jobs could be wrong. Mr. McCarthy referred to the volatility of quarter on quarter numbers and these have been adjusted in the past. For example, we thought there was growth last year and it was downgraded but it can work the other way. Is the Department in any way optimistic that we will see an adjustment of previous quarters which will actually show growth in the economy? My final question is linked. I do not think we have ever had the Department ratcheting up the growth outturn. There is an evident pattern which is that growth is downgraded for this year, that modest growth or a reasonable growth for next year is projected. In April it is downgraded a bit and closer to the budget it gets downgraded more. That has happened for the past number of years. There is something wrong. We can blame external forces as much as we wish but there is a problem in terms of economic forecasting and that is not just within the Department. I appreciate all the difficulties and I would not like to change places with the witnesses. In a way, some of this is false hope. If we actually had the real economic growth figures from 2008 to 2013 painted in black and white, we would have taken a different direction. However, we have been fed the notion that next year will be better if we hold on and tighten the belt a wee bit but when next year comes there is no growth.