Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 September 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Ajai Chopra:

The Government's plan was comprehensive. It was ambitious. It was detailed. I think ... again I can speak only, on ... personally, my own view is that it was more ... it, it had more front-loaded fiscal adjustment than I, you know, than would have been my personal preference. So in that sense it was quite ambitious. Ireland's problems were never structural problems, apart from the structural fiscal deficit. It already had a dynamic labour market. It was not a ... it's not a distorted economy with, with lots of government ownership, so structural reforms were never front and centre in our view, as a part of addressing this crisis. It goes back to some comments I made earlier about, in my view, too much emphasis on supply-side policies and not enough emphasis on demand management. So you know ... and I do remember quite clearly the individual who had to stay up that night. He's a good friend and he did an amazing job in going through that and then being able to discuss it with the Irish authorities.

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