There is good reason to review the national development plan although I share part of the scepticism of some Ministers about the conclusions in the ESRI report. The problem with economists is that they are much better at analysing the past than telling us what will happen in the future and they make the mistake that foolish investors make of assuming that the past is a good guide to the future. No economist forecast the 1997 to 2002 boom. Some, including the ESRI, forecast fairly good growth rates of 5% or 6% but most economists would have told us that average growth rates of 8%, 9% or 10% over a sustained period of six or seven years were impossible. When this plan was first launched, it looked as if we would have a network of motorways in three years but suddenly everything fell behind, costs increased and went out of control.