Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When we engage with other institutions such as the European Commission and the IMF, they still use conventional measurements such as gross domestic product and gross national product for our discussions. The reason I feel GNI* is very helpful is that it strips out the volatility and flows that make our economy unique. From a domestic perspective, when we are making decisions here at home, we do it on the understanding of national income that better reflects what is happening in our labour market and in a day-to-day economy with which people are more familiar. I do not play any role whatever in its calculation or process, it is done independently by the Central Statistics Office. It shared those figures with me and I became aware of them not long before they were made public.