McCarthy silent on ministers’criticism of report

AN Bord Snip Nua author Colm McCarthy has refused to be drawn on government ministers’ criticism of his report on Government expenditures which called for large-scale cutbacks to the public service.

Addressing a lunch for chartered accountants in Dublin yesterday, the economist said the country faced four major economic challenges in the coming months and these were to restore fiscal balance, resolve the banking crisis, restore competitiveness and the need to “deleverage the national balance sheet”.

Mr McCarthy stated that in reality the Celtic Tiger economy “had checked out about seven or eight years ago”, but “no one had noticed” as the property bubble had allowed the Government to finance itself with an unsustainable level of property transaction taxes.