Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Professor John FitzGerald has been a research affiliate at the ESRI since November 2014. Prior to that he was a research professor at the ESRI and programme co-ordinator of the macro-economics research area. He is president of the Association d’Instituts Européens de Conjoncture Économique and a former president of the Irish Economic Association. He is presently a member of the commission of the Central Bank of Ireland and of the independent expert panel established in 2014 by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

Professor FitzGerald has published in a number of different fields. In collaboration with his colleagues in the ESRI, he helped develop the ESRI's macro-economic modelling programme. He was a joint author of the report for the Department of Finance on the economic implications for Ireland of the EMU which was published in July 1996. This report was central to the debate on Ireland's membership of the EMU.

He is a joint author of the ESRI's medium-term review which provides a detailed analysis of Ireland's economic prospects over the next decade. In 2011 John FitzGerald was admitted as a member of the Royal Irish Academy in recognition of his work on the behavioural characteristics of the Irish economy.

I advise that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of Defamation Act 2009, the witness is protected by absolute privilege in respect of his evidence to the committee. If he is directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continues to do so, he is entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of his evidence. The witness is directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and, as he has been informed previously, the committee is asking him to refrain from discussing named individuals in this phase of the inquiry. I remind members of the long-standing ruling of the Chair to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I invite Professor FitzGerald to make his opening statement.