Measuring what matters: Alternative measures of progress for Northern Ireland
What is the yardstick by which the progress of countries and societies ought to be measured and judged? This is the question which, for some years now, has acted as the lynchpin behind the many conversations taking place across the globe concerned with whether or not we are measuring what really...
Monday Blog: A new world is emerging
What a year it has been so far. The phrase used by the exiting Margaret Thatcher in 1990, ‘It’s a funny old world’, springs to mind in considering the fall-out from a referendum in the UK and a presidential election in the USA. However, the matter is far from funny. The immediate causes and impacts...
External shocks - change the detail but no need to rewrite the productivity playbook
The vulnerability of the Republic of Ireland economy to external shifts and shocks was brought home in 2016 in at least two ways. While the potential Brexit from the European Union (EU) has unclear political implications, it has almost certainly negative economic implications. At the same time, the...
Monday Blog: Budget 2017 - the good, the bad and the ugly
The draft budget for 2017 for the Republic of Ireland will now be submitted to the European Commission for approval. In the meantime, the real work in relation to the implementation of Budget 2017 proposals will involve various deliberations and discussions leading to the Finance Bill in a number of...
Internal Devaluation and the Irish Crisis
External event contribution The European Trade Union Institute have published a policy inBrief by Tom McDonnell discussing the Irish economic crisis and its aftermath. You can find it here.
Monday Blog: What sort of future for Europe?
Terms like ‘staying in Europe’, ‘pulling out of Europe’, ‘the European project’ and similar expressions are dispensed liberally in popular discourse. The last time I checked a map, Europe comprised a lot of people form Achill in the west of Ireland to Kharyaginskiy in Russia where it is already...
Presentation to Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight
External event contribution Tom McDonnell appeared before the Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight on the 6th of September 2016. In his opening statement on the Economic and Fiscal Position in the Context of Budget 2017 he discussed the fiscal space and identified priorities for inclusive growth in Budget 2017. These...
Opening Statement to the Budgetary Oversight Committee
External event contribution The Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight commenced a series of pre budget hearings last week with contributions from DKM, NERI, the Irish Central Bank, and the ESRI. The hearings will continue this week with contributions from the Fiscal Council and from the European Commission and then next week...
Monday Blog: What role should research organisations play today in Ireland?
On this island we are blessed with an abundance of research organisations and research knowledge coupled with unprecedented access to data sources that we could only have dreamt of a generation ago. Investment in official statistical infrastructure (much of which was prompted by statistical...