Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Dr. Eddie Casey:

At the end of October, we had nearly €30 billion in cash reserves sitting in an account. We could have used that without increasing borrowing. Now, should we have used that for temporary one-off measures? The answer is "No". That would have been a really bad idea. It would have been injecting a lot of stimulus into the economy at once and adding to the inflationary pressures.