Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

When the Economic Management Council was established, the Taoiseach said it would ensure that projections for growth and other matters were fully accurate. He also talked about how items would be reviewed intensively. The Taoiseach placed great store on it. Since then, he has done everything but admit that the growth projections from December were wrong, almost from the moment they were published. This goes to the heart of the credibility of the Economic Management Council. The IMF and the EU downgraded the growth forecasts very early but it took the Government a long time to follow suit.

The Government is now predicting lower growth rates, lower GDP, lower job creation, higher unemployment, lower real wage growth and higher public debt than it was predicting 12 months ago. Some of the variations over the 12 months are significant. The average projected growth of GDP from 2012 to 2015 was 2.9%, but that has been revised down to 2.2%. Projected growth of GNP has been revised down from 2.4% to 1.4%. Average annual investment growth has been revised down from 4% to 1.8% over that period. Nominal GDP has been revised down from €182.7 billion to €178 billion. Net job creation from 2011 to 2015 was projected last year to be 101,000; this April the Government is projecting that it will be 61,000 over that same period. That is a decline of 40,000 jobs in the forecast.

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