First meeting held of the External Advisory Group (EAG) to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO)

The EAG’s expertise is drawn from both academia and the private sector and will serve to enhance the output of the PBO by providing pro-bono technical and methodological assistance. This will assist the PBO in providing Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas with independent, non-partisan, and authoritative fiscal and economic analysis. 

Annette Connolly, Director of the PBO, welcomed the meeting of the EAG and said "this provides an external group to provide a peer review to the PBO, and to assist us in providing high quality research and analysis. I'm pleased to say that the first meeting was constructive and informative."

The establishment of the EAG was agreed by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in April 2018 and is consistent with the OECD’s Recommendation of the Council on Principles for Independent Fiscal Institutions (2014) which recommended that Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs) develop a mechanism for external evaluation of their work.

The full membership of the EAG is:
· Chair Robert Chote (Office for Budget Responsibility, UK);
· Dr. Alan Ahearne (NUI Galway);
· Dr. Alan Barrett (ESRI);
· Dr. Micheál Collins (UCD);
· Ms. Megan Greene (John Hancock Financial Service / Manulife Asset Management); and
· Ms. Dervla McCormack (Partner PwC (Republic of Ireland)).