David Cronin and Daniel McCoy observe that, in contrast to most other EU member states, Ireland is fortunate to have time on its side to deal with the fiscal sustainability issues that an ageing population will present. This is so both because the Irish economy has had several years of strong...

A reason for revising the EU fiscal rules in the early 2010s was to improve member states' forecasts against a background of documented biases in official projections. Using data from Stability and Convergence Programmes and the European Commission's Spring Forecasts, evidence is presented which...