Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 June 2019

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Mr. Seamus Coffey:

It is difficult to give a laymen's assessment of what the average family can expect given the huge level of uncertainty, as Professor McMahon outlined. If I was to say what I would like fiscal policy to achieve for the layman or average family by 2023, it would be that Brexit would not see a return to forced austerity and that we will have put in place policies that would allow us to absorb this shock by having adequate room to do so. If we take the economy in the period from 1999 to 2015-16, looking only at the end points, we would consider it a remarkable performance, with huge increases in employment, income and living standards. That would be to miss out the bit in the middle, however, which is that we surged way too high in 2008, dropped in the years to 2012 and then made a rapid recovery. If we had achieved stable growth from 1999 to 2015-16, taking exactly the same end points, it would be considered a remarkable performance but there was great volatility in that period. What I would look for from fiscal policy in the period to 2023 would be to have a stable and sustained increase in living standards and avoid a return to forced austerity.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.