Mr. Shane Enright:

If memory serves, the negative base effect in September and October 2013 pulled down the headline.

Turning to the outlook - I appreciate that we are providing the committee with many numbers - these are the endorsed macroeconomic forecasts as agreed with the Fiscal Advisory Council as of last week. The 2013 numbers represent the outturn as reflected by the Central Statistics Office and the figures for 2014 and 2015 are obviously our estimates. I will outline some of the changes since the stability programme update, SPU, in April. We have essentially doubled our forecast export growth rate from just over 4% to just over 8% for 2014. This is due to the very strong performance of exports in the first half of the year and the carryover impact for the remainder of this year. That, in turn, accounts for the bulk of the upward revision of this year's GDP headline growth rate from 2.1% at SPU time to 4.7% today.

The figure for personal consumption has been revised upwards for next year by a little. That is due to the assumptions underpinning this forecast Mr. John McCarthy mentioned, the technical assumptions of a neutral budget. The SPU assumed a quantum of consolidation which we are no longer assuming. We anticipate that the knock-on effect of more positive household income will increase private consumption growth by more than we would have anticipated previously. That is one of the main reasons for the upward revision of GDP next year also. The harmonised index of consumer prices, HICP, has also been revised upwards very slightly.

My colleague, Ms Weymes, will discuss developments in the labour market and the outlook for it.