Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 July 2017

Public Accounts Committee

2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2015
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 18 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council
Finance Accounts 2015

9:00 am

Mr. John McCarthy:

Absolutely. It was a shock to everybody. It is a matter of record that I get the figures two hours in advance. I was shocked. Everybody was shocked. We had Paul Krugman's tweets. The main interlocutor with the CSO is EUROSTAT, because it sets the rules and the statistical framework. Since we meet credit rating agencies, the IMF and investors as part of our day-to-day job, we had to try to explain where this was coming from. We got the figures a couple of hours in advance, and it was a difficult communications challenge. It still is, because it still crops up in meetings in Brussels, Paris or wherever.

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