Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 April 2017

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Engagement on Overall Fiscal Position: Discussion

2:00 pm

Mr. John McCarthy:

If there had been issues regarding Brexit we would also see it in the macroeconomic data in the first quarter, but so far there is nothing to suggest the economy has slowed in the first quarter. Retail sales figures increased by more than 6% in January and February. Thankfully, unemployment has continued to decrease and was down to 6.4% in March. All of the soft data from purchasing managers' indexes, PMIs, are very strong. There can sometimes be a delinking of some of the macro data and fiscal data. They are never one to one, particularly on a quarterly basis. I do not think as yet we are seeing a Brexit impact with regard to the macro numbers or on the fiscal side.

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