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

2:15 pm

Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

To make it more confusing, we are economists and we recognise uncertainty, so we love ranges. We have several ranges and I think that is one of the things that makes it complicated. When we look at the forecast for endorsement, we recognise that there are many sets of numbers that could be okay and that is our endorsable range for the forecast. In a separate exercise, when we talk about assessing the fiscal stance we also have a range because we think it is possible to set the fiscal policy in different ways. That also would be okay. We have these two ranges which fit into quite different parts of our mandate and they are about different things. If anyone knows a synonym for the word "range" they should perhaps get in touch with the Fiscal Council.

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