Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Would it be fair to say that most of things that are leading to an apparently positive picture on paper of the economy are external, be that the favourable exchanges rates, lower energy prices, lower interest rates, quantitative easing, or the US measures taken over recent years? Mr. McCarthy might when responding to that question also comment on the effects in this regard of the increase in property prices and the development of the property sector. Are we just bobbing around on a sea of external factors with little control or influence over them - and, equally, are we, for the same reasons, extremely vulnerable to all sorts of external factors over which we have absolutely no control?