Austerity hasn’t done the damage we feared

The Fiscal Advisory Council was set up under the terms of the troika agreement as an independent body to advise the Government on fiscal policy and budgetary matters.

On Tuesday it published its second assessment of fiscal policy and both publications clearly display a marked degree of independent thought.

In its first report in October, it recommended to the Government that it should speed up the fiscal adjustment process to create a more sustainable debt position. The Government duly ignored that advice.