irishtimes.com/newspaper/fin … 65656.html
Responding to questions on the 2008 Comptroller and Auditor General report at the Public Accounts Committee yesterday, Kevin Cardiff, who was appointed as secretary general in January, said the department had “made mistakes”, but that its projections were in line with forecasts from other agencies at the time.
Responding to a question by Jim O’Keeffe as to whether the staff at the department was sufficiently qualified to deal with the “complexity of modern finance”, Mr Cardiff said it needed to increase its level of specialist skills.
The “generalist nature” of the service could be a weakness as well as an asset.
The department had taken professional advice from bodies such as Merrill Lynch, the Central Bank, the National Treasury Management Agency and the Financial Regulator.
It had recently hired a specialist banking analyst, banking accountant and legal expert to help manage its response to the economic situation.
Committee chairman Bernard Allen said the admission by the head of the Department of Finance that his department did not have sufficient expertise or knowledge to address the complex economic and banking issues was a worry.
gee…whodhathunkit
Duisigh:
Mystic Meg for example ?
Well they were probably in line with Dan and Austin’s numbers…
revo
May 7, 2010, 3:56pm
4
i think if you go back over a decade a more you will find that the DOF forecasts were always around the median point between central bank, esri and oecd. might not even have needed an excel sheet