Irish Fiscal Advisory Council


Irish Fiscal Advisory Council is a non-department statutory body providing independent assessments and analysis of the Irish Government's fiscal stance, its economic and budgetary forecasts, and its compliance with fiscal rules. The Fiscal Council was created as part of a wider agenda of budgetary reform after the financial crisis.
The establishment of a fiscal council had been proposed domestically in the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014 and by the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service in November 2010. It also became a requirement of the EU/IMF Programme of Financial
Support for Ireland. Its establishment follows moves to establish independent watchdogs internationally as a means of avoiding repeats of fiscal crises and to promote more transparency around the public finances.

Purpose

The Fiscal Council was formed as part of a programme of reform of Ireland's "budgetary architecture" post the Irish economic crisis. It was established on an interim basis in July 2011, and legally constituted under the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2012 which was part of the EU-IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland.
The formation of the Fiscal Council was a response to the perceived failure of established Irish economic and Irish regulatory institutions to anticipate and warn over the consequences of the Irish credit bubble, and/or to engage in the concerns that were being raised by various international monitors at the time regarding Ireland's economic situation.
The Fiscal Council performs a similar role to the "Office for Budget Responsibility" in the United Kingdom, and other equivalent members of the "Network of European Union Independent Fiscal Institutions".
The Fiscal Council is structured as a Council of five members and a supporting analytical team of about seven
The formal mandate of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council is to:
The Fiscal Council has been well received by Irish financial commentators and its publications are widely covered in the Irish media.

Publications

The key mandated publications of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council are:
The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council commenced an annual conference titled “Path for the Public Finances” in March 2017. The goal is to bring attention to long-term Irish State finance issues relevant for Ireland. International speakers attend. Each annual event is intended to focus on a particular theme, which has been:
The Fiscal Council also publishes Analytical Notes and Working Papers in areas of concern to Irish financial stability.

Focus

The Fiscal Council focuses on macro-fiscal issues. That is, issues that relate to the whole economy as well as to the public finances in Ireland. The Council's output typically covers the recent and future macroeconomic outlook, both from a short-term and medium- to long-term perspective. It puts more weight on the longer-term prospects of the domestic economy in terms of its assessments of how appropriate the Government's budgetary stance is. It also focuses on the cyclical position of the economy to assess whether recent developments might be of a sustainable nature or whether the economy might be expected to outperform or under perform in future. It also puts a lot of emphasis on analysing various imbalances and risks to the economy and public finances.
The Council has brought attention to issues including:

Chairperson