Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform
Fiscal Assessment Report November 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council
2:55 pm
Mr. Sebastian Barnes:
If I may clarify something that is very relevant in the current context, obviously in an Irish context it is not GDP; it is also the tax base, which is not quite the same. One of the very significant developments is the pharmaceutical patent cliff, which will drag on GDP but will not drag on the tax base as much. We will go through a position where the GDP numbers might not look great because of what is happening in a specific sector but the underlying economy and what is driving taxes is doing better. It is a time when we have to be particularly cautious about interpreting GDP but obviously the basic principle is the same.
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