Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Professor McHale; that will be very helpful. I understand that there has to be a point in time when the council knows the data is robust.

We are in a bit of a mess. The council has been helpful in developing a new way of measuring our debt to GDP ratio but it does not mean anything apart from it being the way the council has now decided to calculate the ratio. It has no international standing and nobody else recognises the manner in which the council is calculating the ratio. Its task is to ensure that we comply with the fiscal rules but they do not mean anything unless one wants to believe that we reduced our debt to GDP ratio by 27% last year. That is what we are measuring the fiscal rules against and that is why we have been labelled with the term "leprechaun economics". How will we sort this out?

The council's job is to ensure that we are complying with rules that are meaningless because they are measured against GDP. Despite its best efforts to come up with a new way of calculating it, the European Commission does not measure our debt to GDP levels based on taxation revenue. Rather, it will measure it against GDP.

What is the long-term solution for this, or is there a solution for it?