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

That is fine. Sometimes it is unfair to simplify matters when discussing this issue. However, the current opinion is that the council is being critical of or, indeed, whingeing about the fact that the Government is not listening to its recommendations. However, Professor McHale has indicated his opinion to the effect that the Government is not ignoring those recommendations and that the council, in turn, endorses the macroeconomic projections. There is a problem there. I am not necessarily on the same page as Professor McHale in respect of this matter. I am of the view that the information the council provides should inform the debate. Sometimes that debate is too simplistic and that is why there may be a wish to move on. However, Professor McHale can respond to that point.

I wish now to examine a little more the work done by the council which does not attract the type of recognition it deserves. In that context, I will focus on the issue of contract manufacturing. The committee discussed this matter previously with representatives from the Department of Finance and the council drew attention to it in its report in the context of the accuracy of GDP figures. What is the council's best guess regarding the distortion of the figures as a result of contract manufacturing? The officials from the Department of Finance indicated that the position in this regard is impossible to model at this point. Is there a way to try to strip out contract manufacturing from the relevant figures in order to discover what is the real level of GDP? Those figures have been distorted as a result of the inclusion of contract manufacturing. We might be meeting targets but this could be at a level that does not really exist. I will return later to the question of the revision of GDP, a development that did not really benefit Ireland but that did have a benefit statistically. Is contract manufacturing here to stay and, if so, should we be trying to strip the figures relating to it out of the overall figures for GDP?