Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Recommendation No. 10 states: "The State should advocate for a shift in emphasis in EU and international economic policy away from GDP expansion as a goal in itself and towards the goals of societal and ecological wellbeing." That is a great recommendation. I think it is a radical recommendation because it goes against the ideology of growth and growthism, which arises from the capitalist system in which we live, which involves production for profit and needs constant expansion in order to keep profit going. How did the citizens' assembly come to make this recommendation?

It cuts against the assumption across mainstream media, in the Civil Service and among the vast majority of political parties, which holds that by definition GDP growth is a good thing. That assumption is that our lives will get better if we have more GDP and our lives will get worse if we have less GDP as opposed to looking at what constitutes GDP, which is many things that make people's lives worse rather than better, such as arms production, advertising and fossil fuel production. There are obviously many things that add very little to GDP but that make people's lives better in terms of public luxury such as high-quality parks. Those things add something but they do not add anything near what is total GDP. The witnesses' considerations of that would be interesting. How much were these issues considered?