Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The last point the witness makes is quite interesting about it being the first quarter in 2015 when this change took place. That is what the witness mentioned, yet we had the revision quite a bit later. It is interesting that the CSO's antennae was raised. Would it be helpful if there was a requirement on some of these large multinationals to inform the CSO, as opposed to it having to have its antennae raised for something that is to have a dramatic consequence for the country?

A new metric committee is being set up. The Central Bank and the CSO will be involved and the Central Bank will report to the CSO. However, the new metric will have no legal basis. It may help us to have a discussion about how our country is going, how the economy is growing, is it really growing, is it in recession and so on. We will be able to have a more informed debate. The problem for the State at this point in time is that we have legally-binding targets that are measured not by whatever the new metric committee will come up with, though I wish it well in terms of its work, but against GDP. With all of the conversations going on in the UN and the EU, it is unlikely that will be changed in the short term. I am not sure whether there was any other country in the world that had a 26% increase in GDP last year. We have an economy that is very reliant on multinationals, has allowed for a lot of corporate inversions, contract manufacturing and quite unique activities, though they happen in some shape or form elsewhere, but that are very concentrated in this country and that have thrown off our figures. It has basically meant that they are meaningless for us as a metric. What are we going to do?

The point I made to the witness is that if one of these companies decides to move its intellectual property to America next year, we could be looking at a GDP reduction of 20%. Then there is the issue whereby we have legally-binding targets for debt-to-GDP to be reduced or deficit-to-GDP to be reduced. We would have a real problem and there could be international spillovers in terms of the international bond markets. That would cost all of us. Is there any interim solution? I know that the long-term solution is to have a more appropriate measure internationally. I agree with the witness on that. However, whatever we come up with will be an Irish solution to Irish problem and will not be recognised by anybody else in the world. Has the witness any interim solution to try to deal with this? Is there a way of dealing with this?