Dr. Dan McLaughlin:

No, it wasn't. If you look at ... if you look at what I actually wrote - it's very clear I said in 2007 the housing market was slowing down. I forecast in early 2008 a significant fall in house price completions, which was actually correct. It dropped to 50,000. My mistake, in terms of the housing market, was to say that the correction would be in real house prices, not nominal house prices, because we hadn't had a fall ... a huge fall in nominal house prices. Morgan Kelly's prediction was actually in real house prices as well, and all the analysis that people refer to are real house prices, not nominal. So, in 2007, I and most other economists in Ireland could clearly see the housing market was slowing down. What we ... what I didn't see was the fact that it would collapse the way it did, but I would argue, and this is where people may differ, I would argue that the liquidity collapse that happened in ... at the end of 2008 was a significant factor. Now some other ... some people disagree with that but it seems to me very difficult to sustain the view-----