Where they flying?!

Exactly, I remember on the article about this report on here there were commenters pointing out the flaws (eg, basing figures for expenditure and disposable income on info from 2004-2006 which is pre-crisis and liable to have changed due to introduction in new taxes etc). It was quite apparent from the offset that something wasn’t right..

The media are prone to jumping upon the most sensational of studies, whether they have been independently verified or not.. If you were unfamiliar with how research works (which most people are) you would be forgiven for taking it as read when it appears in national media. It sure leads to a lot of confusion.

Exactly what it is. Expect big cuts to the social next budget. Pretty easy to see thru government spin these days, thats why they pay their advisors big money.

Yeah he looks more like a TD if you ask me.

Tol said he didn`t author the revised report….so who did??

The Bleedin Hack of him

Interesting remark from Tol as quoted in the Irish Times of 2nd January last:

“Ireland is facing 10 years of austerity. Leaving Ireland is the best thing you can do at the moment if you are responsible for a young family.”

@ John – Without having any direct link to the ESRI, I’m a little sceptical with Tol’s criticisms of that institution. It easy to be a “people’s champion” after you’ve left/been pushed out. He criticises them for their policies and for towing the party line, but how much of this is sour grapes. The ESRI hasn’t been an institution that was and is carved in stone: the quality of its work and any agenda underlying its work has changed as the research staff and management has changed. Like any research department/institute, the quality of the research and the recommendations based on that research fundamentally depends on who is doing the research. It is ingenious of Tol to say that “In a university you can say what you like if you behave responsibly. It’s not the same with the ESRI,” he said. “If you violate policy and upset people, you can get into trouble.” In all honesty, I don’t think you’ll be able to find an academic who will fully and wholeheartedly back this up. University departments are equally riddled with politics.

Ultimately, a working paper, clearly labelled as such and intended to be circulated as such amongst academics and specialists, had been pushed into the mainstream and is being judged, not on its academic worth, but on its possible political/cultural implications. As stated before, the data used ( perhaps only provisionally ) is not as current or reliable as it could be. He’s presenting an analysis of data, not a political policy.

This has been hijacked to create a news story, and neither Tol, the ESRI or the Irish Times have handled the situation well. They have used it to further there own agendas or grudges, and inso doing, they’ve turned this paper into something it was never intended to be. The research does not say that people should stop working and should instead sign on. It is an analysis of available data. Tol, the ESRI and the Irish Times have all stepped outside their boundaries and have instead been showboating. The issue is not that this is an “explosive revelation”, the issue is that specialists in their given fields have a responsibility to stay within their fields when analysing a situation. When academics and academic institutions feel that they have a right to “Bonofy” and pontificate on topics that is not in their area of expertise, and this is happyly funneled into the mass-media to boost readership figures, then we cannot look at academic research objectively. Which, in my own naive way, is what I always believed academic research to be; the turning of ideas and opinions into objective, dispassionate analysis.

Long post, apologies.

Yep. “In a university you can say what you like if you behave responsibly.(!) It’s not the same with the ESRI, If you violate policy and upset people, you can get into trouble.” That caught my eye too.
From that quote in Colm Keena’s article in the IT and others elsewhere one can clearly see that there is a thinly disguised case of an academic ego having being deflated accompanied by more than a little righteous indignation.

His ESRI work was not full time. I believe his day job is Professor of Economics at the University of West Sussex

Not West Sussex, just Sussex……..sorry.

What is that middle word of the 3 that you typed?

I wouldn’t have said he looked bonkers, but I’m not sure whether that’s a patch of light or lighter coloured hair by his ear, it kind of makes him look like a fairy tale troll or something..

Looks can be deceiving.