Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)
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Others have said in testimony here that the EMU was incomplete, that it was not fit for purpose in a crisis. Professor FitzGerald talked a lot about how fiscal tools could have been used. Given these constraints to do with monetary policy, would it be fair to say that fiscal tools need a longer lead-in period? For example, if one devalues a currency or puts up or down interest rates, that is pretty immediate, but for fiscal policy to have real effects in the day-to-day economy, we need a longer lead time. The policy would have to be set now to achieve an outcome in three, four, five or eight years time.