Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach did not answer the question, which was whether he would commission the CSO to design a proper, accurate way of calculating the real size of the economy. Professor John FitzGerald, formally of the ESRI, has attempted to do this as an individual. It is shocking that the Department of Finance and the Taoiseach's Department did not work years ago to create a proper model to calculate the size of the economy. The figures are not unprecedented. They are false in terms of what is happening on the ground and the reality in the economy. The CSO says it is including - not taking account of - the impact of aircraft leasing, corporate inversions and contract manufacturing, but none of this impacts on real jobs and investment in the economy, as the thousands of people who are struggling realise.

It is not good enough that no one in official Ireland has attempted to address this by coming up with an accurate home-grown model that takes all of this into account, strips it out and gives us a proper figure.

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