The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO)

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) provides independent and impartial information, analysis and advice to the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Leadership and organisational structure

The PBO comes under the leadership of the director, Annette Connolly, who holds overall responsibility for its development and management.

Its organisational structure comprises the economic and fiscal analysis unit and the costings and modelling unit, each led at principal officer level.

Economic and fiscal analysis unit

Deputy director Denise O’Connell oversees the economic and fiscal analysis unit, which is responsible for budgetary research and analysis, encompassing the examination of expenditure and taxation, economic research, public finance management and EU semester and fiscal rules.

Costings and modelling unit

Dr. Jacopo Bedogni leads the costings and modelling unit, which is dedicated to conducting comprehensive policy costing analyses and in-depth budgetary research for Members and parties. Additionally, this unit plays a pivotal role in enhancing modelling capabilities for economic and fiscal analysis.

Background of key personnel

Annette Connolly (director): Prior to her role as director of the PBO, Annette was head of the central expenditure management policy unit at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Annette is a Designated Public Official under the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015; see the Register of Lobbying.
Denise O’Connell (deputy director, economic and fiscal analysis unit): Denise O’Connell formerly worked in the Department of Finance in various roles including tax policy, economics and budgetary matters. Denise has also worked in the Department of Health.
Jacopo Bedogni (head of costings and modelling unit): Before taking on his current role, Dr. Jacopo Bedogni worked as a research assistant at the University of Genoa in Italy. He also worked in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform as an economist and later took on the responsibility of heading budgetary research within the PBO.

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Why was the PBO established?

The need for the office was identified by the OECD in its review of budget oversight by the Irish Parliament. The Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform, in its final report in May 2016, recommended that the office be established.

Established in 2017, the PBO provides tailored support, advice and analysis on economic and fiscal matters to the Houses of the Oireachtas, its members and committees as they to fulfil their role in approving and providing oversight of the Irish State’s finances. In particular it supports the Committee on Budgetary Oversight as it conducts ex-ante scrutiny of budgetary matters. The PBO was put on a statutory basis in the Houses of Oireachtas Commission (Amendment) Act 2018 and has an external advisory group to advise on technical matters.

The Fiscal Council and the PBO

The PBO is one of two independent fiscal institutions in Ireland, the other being the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. In contrast to the PBO, the Fiscal Council is focused on certain legislated assessments and making these public: endorsing the Government’s macroeconomic projections, assessing its forecasts, monitoring compliance with fiscal rules, and assessing the Government’s overall fiscal stance.

Letter of Understanding regarding the relationship between the Houses of the Oireachtas’s Parliamentary Budget Office and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

External advisory group

The PBO’s external advisory group (EAG) is a group of academic and private sector experts who help the PBO with pro-bono technical and methodological assistance. The establishment of the EAG was agreed by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in April 2018 and is consistent with the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Principles for Independent Fiscal Institutions (2014) which recommends that independent fiscal institutions develop a mechanism for external evaluation of their work. The first meeting of the EAG took place on Monday, 25 June 2018.

The full membership of the EAG is:

Chair Robert Chote (UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) and Northern Ireland Fiscal Council (NIFC))
Dr. Alan Barrett (ESRI)
Dr. Micheál Collins (UCD)
Ms. Dervla McCormack (Partner PwC (Republic of Ireland))
Dr. Stephen Kinsella* (UL)

* Dr. Stephen Kinsella replaced Dr. Alan Ahearne (NUI Galway) who was a member of the EAG from June 2018 to August 2020.

The EAG meets at least once per annum. The latest meeting of the EAG took place on 8 March 2024.

Contact details

Parliamentary Budget Office
Leinster House
Kildare Street
Dublin 2
D02 XR20
pbo@oireachtas.ie

About the PBO