Tonight with #vinb: ESRI quarterly commentary & Greek election

{jathumbnailoff} On Tonight with Vincent Browne, Joe Durcan, Marie Sherlock, Dimitrious Tsouros and Thomae Kakouli will be discussing the ESRI quarterly commentary and the outcome of the Greek election and its implications for Europe and for Ireland. Vincent shares his thoughts on today's ESRI news:

Today the ESRI projected there would be zero growth in the Irish economy this year but that next year would be better. When asked when last did the ESRI predict otherwise (it's always this year will be awful, but next year will be grand) they explained they relied on projections from agencies throughout Europe and these had proved unreliable. They said however that they continued to use these unreliable projections because there were no others.

They said Ireland would almost certainly need another bailout from the EU (80 per cent certain) but that that was fine, it would not amount to the humiliation of the first bailout. When asked why, they said because the first bailout came about as an emergency, this time we will all know about it well in advance.

They also said there was no point to a stimulus programme in Ireland to boost the economy for that would seep out of the open Irish economy and would not give the boost that a stimulus would give a closed economy. What was needed was a European-wide bailout.

Asked why they had not taken into consideration the possibility there would be a collapse of the Euro, they said that would be catastrophic and that perhaps they should have referred to that.

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