Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo the Chairman's welcome to Mr. Nava and his football analogy. Many Irish people will be in Rome this weekend for rugby, and we have many happy memories of Italia '90, even "Toto" Schillaci. We got one back four years later when Ray Houghton got the goal. Terrific friendships were formed at that time, and I join the Chairman in welcoming Mr. Nava here.

Mr. Nava also represents a very important academic tradition in that the Italian school of economics, scienza delle finanze, includes eminent people in economics to which Richard Musgrave has drawn our attention, and Mr. Nava is in that tradition. I see references to these people in his academic works. One of them, Maffeo Pantaleoni, was a very good economist who was elected to the Italian Senate but died soon afterwards, so I am hoping not to follow that precedent.

Mr. Nava was very pessimistic at the end of his contribution when he said that it would be presumptuous to claim that these reforms have consigned financial crises, and banking crises in particular, to history. When is the next crisis due? Should those watching this on television be worried if somebody of Mr. Nava's knowledge and eminence says we have not got this correct yet?