Dr. Tom McDonnell:

Essentially, what we are doing is engaged in a process of looking deeply at the academic literature for what different economic systems are doing around the world. Obviously, many of those systems that exist at the moment were developed in the 20th century so what we are attempting to do is trying to gather the information, the data, and the theories in dozens of different areas and use them to develop what is probably better categorised as a new economic framework. It is the same framework for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as to the destination but because the starting places are different, the immediate policy prescriptions for the North and for the South are different but with a view to getting to the same destination.

Essentially, we are developing it around four pillars. First, is sustainable and inclusive growth. We are looking at economic growth policy for different economies over time. It has to be sustainable. There is no point having the type of boom economy we had in the Republic, say, in 2005 to 2007. There are certain types of growth that are sustainable and good and those are generally based upon productivity. We keep banging on about productivity because it is ultimately the secret sauce of everything, but it also has to be inclusive growth. It cannot simply be growth for the top 10% of the population; it has to be broader based than that.