Abstract
The conclusion summarises the extent to which commentators understood the risks to the Irish economy, providing a table outlining the most notable warnings issued in the period. It argues that international historical precedent provided the best means to ascertain how the Irish boom would end, suggesting that the contemporary discourse was largely characterised by analysts ignoring or misinterpreting pertinent episodes. It reconsiders the institutional shortcomings that hampered many analysts, though recognises that these were not decisive and that analytical errors were also key. The chapter considers some of the possible options that were available to dissenters to secure change, concluding that they inevitably faced a formidable task. It outlines the policy changes that should have been implemented at the time, before turning to the institutional reforms necessary to improve policy debate in the future.
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Notes
- 1.
David McWilliams , ‘This Borrowing Binge Is Blowing Our Bubble’, The Sunday Business Post , 2 December 2000.
- 2.
Morgan Kelly , ‘How the Housing Corner Stones of Our Economy Could go into Rapid Freefall’, The Irish Times , 28 December 2006.
- 3.
Patrick Honohan , ‘Resolving Ireland’s Banking Crisis’, UCD Economic Workshop Conference ‘Responding to the Crisis’, Dublin , 12 January 2009a, 6 and Morgan Kelly , ‘Banking on very Shaky Foundations’, The Irish Times , 7 September 2007.
- 4.
Patrick Honohan , The Irish Banking Crisis: Regulatory and Financial Stability Policy 2003–2008. A report to the Minister for Finance by the Governor of the Central Bank (2010), 84; Patrick Honohan , ‘Resolving Ireland’s Banking Crisis’, UCD Economic Workshop Conference ‘Responding to the Crisis’, Dublin , 12 January 2009a, 6; Anthony Murphy , ‘Modelling Irish House Prices: A Review and Some New Results’ (2005), 10–17, 21, 23. Available from http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/murphya/Centre.htm; John Maynard Keynes , The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (BN Publishing, 2008), 97, 104–105.
- 5.
Morgan Kelly , ‘On the Likely Extent of Falls in Irish House Prices’, ESRI , Quarterly Economic Commentary, Summer 2007, 42.
- 6.
Houses of the Oireachtas, Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, vol. 2, no. 26, Tom O’Connell , 10 June 2015, 83–84, 92, 134.
- 7.
Houses of the Oireachtas, Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, vol. 2, no. 26, Tom O’Connell , 10 June 2015, 84 and Houses of the Oireachtas, Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, vol. 2, no. 33, John McCarthy, 24 June 2015, 6–7, 9–10.
- 8.
https://ie.linkedin.com/in/damcwilliams. Accessed 27 January 2016; Michael Lewis, Boomerang: The Biggest Bust (London, 2011), 89, 90; and Houses of the Oireachtas, Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, vol. 1, no. 10, David McWilliams , 26 February 2015, 500–501.
- 9.
John Mulqueen, ‘Brought to Book’, The Irish Times , 27 July 2001 , 54.
- 10.
Houses of the Oireachtas, Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, vol. 1, no. 10, David McWilliams , 26 February 2015, 500–501 and Paul Melia, ‘Survey Sees no End to Boom in Property’, The Irish Independent , 21 March 2005.
- 11.
‘No Indication of Property Downturn, Says Ahern ’, The Irish Times , 8 April 2006 and Liam Reid, ‘Inflation and Rising Interest Rates Are Biggest Challenges’, The Irish Times , 5 September 2006, 9.
- 12.
Houses of the Oireachtas, Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, vol. 2, no. 48, Bertie Ahern , 16 July 2015, 82, 83, 100 and Galbraith , The Great Crash 1929 (2009), 52.
- 13.
Galbraith , The Great Crash 1929 (2009), 59.
- 14.
Frank Barry , ‘Towards Improved Policymaking in Ireland: Contestability and the Marketplace for Ideas’, Irish Journal of Public Policy (2011), vol. 3, no. 2. Available from http://publish.ucc.ie/ijpp/2011/02. Accessed 2 February 2016; ‘Taoiseach Apologises for Suicide Comments’, The Irish Times , 4 July 2007; and ‘No Indication of Property Downturn, Says Ahern ’, The Irish Times , 8 April 2006.
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Casey, C.M. (2018). Conclusion. In: Policy Failures and the Irish Economic Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90182-4_8
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