Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform
Macroeconomic Forecasting: Discussion with Department of Finance
7:30 pm
Mr. John McCarthy:
I will correct what I said earlier. Yes, we base it on the figures for the first two quarters, but there were also high frequency data over the summer such as the figures for retail sales and so forth. We also take these into account. What I am talking about in the market consensus is that each month Reuters undertakes a survey of ten to 12 of the domestic financial institutions, that is, the banks, stockbrokers and the ESRI, and produces what is known as a median forecast for seven or eight variables such as GDP, GNP, inflation, employment, unemployment and so forth. It publishes this and provides us with the data. The early October consensus from Reuters was 0% in GDP this year and growth of 1.7% next year.