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

We now move back into public session for the second hearing of this morning. I welcome to the meeting Professor Alan Ahearne, NUI Galway, on issues relating to early warnings, and divergent and contrarian views in the context of the banking crisis in Ireland. Professor Alan Ahearne is a professor and head of economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is chairman of the steering committee governing the newly launched Economic and Social Research Institute, the ESRI, and Department of Finance Joint Research Programme on the Macroeconomy and Taxation. He has served as external adviser to the Strategy, Practice and Review Department of the International Monetary Fund. He is a member of the Commission of the Central Bank of Ireland. He is also a member of the Central Bank's audit and risk committees. Prior to coming to Galway in 2005, Professor Ahearne was senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C, where he worked for seven years. There he advised Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and other Federal Reserve governors on developments in the global economy. He was principal economist at the Federal Reserve covering the Japanese and Chinese economies. He served as a special adviser to former Minister for Finance, the late Deputy Brian Lenihan, from March 2009 to March 2011. Professor Ahearne's areas of expertise are macroeconomics and international finance. His research includes studies on property markets in Ireland and other industrial countries, global current account imbalances and exchange rates and the economic performance of the euro area. Professor Ahearne is very welcome before the inquiry this morning.

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

I now invite Professor Ahearne to make his opening remarks to the inquiry please.