Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. David Begg:

No, I don't at all, because, quite frankly, what I would have seen was that over the period of five or six years leading up to the financial crisis, Ireland was running a budget surplus every year and, you know, it was quite substantial, I think, up to 2.9% at the end. And there was no adverse effect on that from social partnership that I could see. I did cite - in my supplementary statement - the evidence from Fritz Scharpf from the Cologne Institute, in which he said that in the case of Ireland and Spain, social partnership was a counter, if you like, to the trends that were happening in the economy. It was just that it wasn't a strong enough counter. And I also did indicate-----

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