Mr. Angel Gurría:

Thank you. We are presenting today the Economic Survey of Ireland 2018. We joined the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, this morning and presented the main conclusions. This is the PowerPoint presentation of the full document and it is for very busy chairs of committees. This is a three-pager and all three are meant to have to have the same messages and substance.

It is a pleasure to be back in Ireland to share the main conclusions from our economic survey. Ireland could be said to be at the origin of modern economic surveys. Back in the 17th century, William Petty’s efforts to collect and collate data put Ireland at the forefront of what we now call evidence-based policy making, even if the policy was made elsewhere. What evidence would he find today? He would probably find that Ireland is doing well and the recovery in economic output since the crisis has been stronger than in any other OECD country. That is an important fact of which Ireland should be proud. The unemployment rate has dropped from over 15% in early 2012 to approximately 6% today, which is below the OECD average. Domestic demand is growing at around 5% while inflation is still only 0.2%. Some of us, especially when we were finance Ministers, have spent our lives trying to bring inflation down but it is only now, paradoxically, that we are trying to put up inflation, which is proving difficult.

The overall growth outlook is good too and we expect Ireland’s gross domestic product, GDP, to expand strongly, albeit at a more sustainable pace, by around 3% this year and 2.5% next year. The economic successes of recent years owe much to the Government’s efforts to address the legacy of the crisis. The fiscal deficit declined from 11.5% of GDP in 2009 to only 1% five years later and the reforms of the banking sector are starting to bear fruit. There was a relatively high cost of having cleansed the banks and made them functional again. The country bit the bullet when it was necessary and it would have been very destabilising not to do that at the time. Eventually, the country has received the benefits of a more stable and stronger banking sector.

Parliament played a role in this. Three years ago we produced a report with some ambitious recommendations about how the Parliament scrutinises and influences the annual budget. Many of these recommendations have now been implemented. Today, in addition to the work of the Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, the new budgetary oversight committee has been established, with an intensive work schedule that includes reviewing the fiscal position of the Government and examining the expenditure policy proposed by the Government. In addition, a new Irish parliamentary budget office is up and running. I know of the Chairman's insistence throughout his career on the question of delivery of bang for the buck and getting public servants to deliver their commitments.