Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

There are two main parts and many other parts. The first of the two main things to focus on is the shortness of the forecast horizon, particularly because of the crisis. The economists tend to think about the short run and then we go to some normal path of the economy. The scale of these shocks is so big that within a three-year window we are not back at the normal path so we cannot really see what the Government thinks the long term is. Part of our role is to assess its forecasts but they are not there so we cannot assess them. Sometimes we have seen issues, even in the short run. It is hard to understand this because it is like if you leave a film after half an hour. You do not know what the ending is.