Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 8 February 2017
Committee on Budgetary Oversight
Macroeconomic Outlook: IBEC
2:00 pm
Mr. Fergal O'Brien:
I think we have become too cautious. One of the things we are not very good at in this country is assessing the cost of doing nothing. Right now we are doing nothing about our infrastructure. It is potentially one of the biggest misreads of the economy we have ever seen that we have not seen this recovery come through. We have not seen the strength of the demographic pressure, the numbers that have gone back to work, the numbers that are commuting and we are not delivering an infrastructure to keep pace with what is happening in the economy. It is a missed opportunity but it has also been a very significant misread of what is happening in the economy and one of the biggest disappointments-----