Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I have a number of short questions for Professor Barrett. Does the Department of Finance rely on the ESRI's model or does it have its own model? What model does the European Commission use? How does the ESRI relate to the European Commission in terms of any modelling analysis the latter carries out? Is the model we use - set up by T.K. Whitaker, which was an interesting piece of history - matched by other similar sized countries in the European Union, like Austria, Finland or Denmark?

What do they tend to use in terms of economic research analysis? How much of the ESRI's research analysis, particularly that relating to the Department of Finance, takes place ex anterather than looking at decisions after the fact? As a specific example, what involvement did the ESRI have in analysing the spring economic statement, which was published yesterday? What involvement did it have in analysing the earlier stability programme update before it was published? I was interested to hear that the ESRI has 100 staff. How many staff did the ESRI have five years ago and ten years ago?