Ms Phil Prendergast, MEP:

I thank the Chairman and welcome the delegates to the committee. Last month President Higgins visited the European Parliament and urged us to challenge the dominance of the mainstream neoclassical economics and our response to the crisis and many of its unproven hypotheses. They are unproven but we wish we could call them untested. Unfortunately they have been continuously and most thoroughly tested in this half decade of the austerity experiment. I do not share the beliefs and assumptions that underpin the austerity experiment and the case for it has been continuously undermined from within. Last year and again in early 2013 the IMF did concede to growth forecasts. Its underestimation of the forecasts which seemed to be flawed was certainly problematic in terms of outcomes. Has Professor Patrick Honohan any particular comments to make on that issue?