Seamus Coffey: Ireland moves from financial to real constraints

The real constraints on economic policy are the supply of labour and the stock of capital assets. Capital assets include produced assets like roads and buildings, and non-produced assets like land and natural resources

'We can say we want more housing built but unless we make the space in the economy to deliver it, it is not clear where the additional workers needed to do so will come from,' writes Seamus Coffey.

Ireland has a mixed history when it comes to achieving the goals of economic policy.

This has varied from pretty much failure in decades following independence, to the achievement of them — albeit sometimes only temporarily — in more recent times.