Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hear that, and it is welcome the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has come up with a new measurement for debt to GDP. It tells politicians and others to stop fooling themselves if they believe debt is decreasing to sustainable levels and that they should not swallow their own propaganda and state the country is doing well, because debt did not fall but increased in recent times. However, measured against GDP, it seems to have taken a dramatic drop.

My party's position was not to support the rules in the first place. Some of those who argued for them are now arguing that we should be able to spend capital, which we cannot because of the rules, and they wonder whether there is a way around them. We have gone through this in recent years. The problem is that we have binding rules that involve measuring against a factor that nobody in the room believes is credible, unless any of the witnesses want to state they do. We have rules that lack credibility. One may believe the idea behind the rules was prudent, but we have a serious problem with the measurement against GDP. Is this a problem that other European countries face or is it unique to Ireland?