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

7:40 pm

Mr. John McCarthy:

Our models do look at this. If a road is being built one does not get as much bang for one's buck as if a school is being built, and so forth. There would be differences in terms of the type of building and construction. That is what we try to get into when we are trying to formulate our forecasts. We look at the individual measures and move them up. We would be looking at perhaps a multiplier of close to 0.7% or 0.8%. That would not be unreasonable but again I stress that it would depend on the type of stimulus being discussed.