Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I will move on due to time constraints. I understand that the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council is not supposed to discuss policy anyway. The witnesses discuss it a little more than their predecessors but that is perhaps for another day.

I will just talk about inflation and the council's assessment that the primary drivers of inflation are in the areas of energy and food. Obviously food is itself driven by energy and supply side factors. Have the witnesses any view of the appropriateness of the current monetary and interest rate policies when the key drivers of inflation, as they identified, are supply rather than demand driven and are likely temporary, as they suggested? How long is temporary given that those monetary policies are now driving up interest rates and causing pressure on households?