Robert Watt - 16th of July 2026

[music] >> Hello and welcome to this edition of IIEA Insights with me, Don O'Brien. Today we'll assess the economic outlook at this juncture, just over halfway through the year. In a different format from usual, I'll present a series of slides and our guest, Robert Watt, CEO of the Dublin Port Generation Authority, will act as discussant. Robert will be well known to most of you as one of Ireland's most senior civil servants over recent decades, but he's also an economist by profession and a person of robust views. So, I'm very much looking forward to the discussion. As usual, we might find some time for questions at the end. So, if you in the audience want to put those questions, you can do so via the Q&A function at the bottom of your screens. Robert, welcome. Many thanks for giving us your time. >> Great to be here, Don. Great to Great to see you. Delighted to participate in this conversation. >> Great. Um look, just to start out and get it for people to get a sense of your sense of the economy, if you were to rate the current state of the Irish economy, um zero being on the floor, 10 being roaring, uh what sort of a number would you put on it? >> Well, I think it it'd have to say that that still remarkably after so many years of very strong growth since 2013 with the If you think about the the period we've gone through since 13 with the obviously the impact of COVID and the pandemic, it's been a remarkable period. And there doesn't seem to be any evidence of discernable slowdown despite the risks that are out there. Unemployment is still very low. Employment is high. Maybe not growing as quickly as perhaps in previous periods that we've experienced, but still growing. And there's plenty of work out there. Uh so, I would think an incredibly robust performance after so many years of of of recovery. So, seven seven or eight uh I think a lot of risks maybe greater risks uh geopolitical risks, international risks, which I know you'll touch on now in a moment, than normal, perhaps. And that that suggests maybe that we'll have bumpy time bumpier times ahead. But, when you look at big sick issues around what's happening to tax tax returns, the labor market trends all still still pretty positive, but maybe not quite growing as quickly as we would have been maybe uh a year ago or 2 years ago. But, still still I think a very very positive performance. >> Okay. Well, look, I I very much uh share that view. So, consensus there. And hopefully uh we won't have Right. Okay. Well, look, let me uh start by looking at the four big sections that I intend to look at today um taking from the spaghetti western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Um we're going to have the not-so-bad, the bad, the ugly, and we'll finish on the good. So, I'll uh present a few slides and we'll stop and then we'll Robert and I will have a chat and he'll give us his reaction. So, the not-so-bad. Uh inflation. Since the uh US-Israeli attack on Iran at the end of February, there has been a really big concern that inflation was going to get out of control and that this was going to lead to interest rate increases, which it has has already done in the case of the ECB, one interest rate increase. Um but, I think it's important to say that this is not 2021-22. If you look at Irish inflation, um inflation was always already rising very rapidly in 2021. Um uh why was that? That was because of the effects of the pandemic via various channels. Now, the invasion of Ukraine in 20 February of '22 did make things worse, but as you can see from the graphic there, inflation peaked in the middle of 2022 and then started coming down. So, while the invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis it caused while made the inflationary problem worse, it was not the cause of the inflationary problem. What does that Why is that relevant today? Because clearly we're not coming out of a pandemic now. Uh so, it's not nearly as worrying. So, let me also then go on to compare energy prices between now and back uh after the invasion and before around the time of the invasion of Ukraine. Now, if for oil prices, we see something broadly similar. Uh oil prices have rose with the uh with the attacks on Iran and the closure of the the Strait of Hormuz. The recent days, as the graphic shows, they've gone back up again. But not very different from what happened after the invasion of Ukraine. Now, what's really different and the reason why I'm much less worried about a peace or even um inflation getting to 5 or 6% is gas. Now, we are particularly dependent on gas in Ireland and also use a lot of it more widely in Europe. Now, as we can see, gas prices as of now 50 euro a unit in the main European energy market. [clears throat] Uh if we look back to August 2022, uh at the peak when they were absolutely going wild, we saw they were seven times higher. So, we're clearly nothing in that territory for uh gas. Oil a little bit similar to then, but as I say, taking all those pieces in the round, um inflation is not going to come back because we don't have a pandemic largely, but also because gas prices are so much lower. So, things This is bad. There's no doubt. The energy shock that we faced since late February hasn't been good. Uh it's probably going to cause economic growth in the world and in Ireland to be a little less strong than it was and probably add a few uh a point or two percentage point or two to inflation, but certainly not where we were back then. So, what's the And this is not my view. Anybody in the forecasting business, where where we economists are not great forecasters, but we are reasonably good at forecasting what happens when inflation and energy rises and what that happens to growth and inflation. Why? Because we've had so many episodes of it over the past 40 years, our models are pretty good at reflecting that. And there is no forecaster out there, either domestically or internationally, who thinks this is going to be a major problem. Most of them now have done these adverse scenario forecasts, which are separate from their main forecast, and they have that sort of as a way of not being caught out if things do get worse. So, for example, if both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea were to get closed, we could see oil at $200 a barrel, and that would have a more serious effect. But I think it would it would take oil and energy prices rising a lot more than they have recently for it to have a really significant effect on on output and inflation. Uh and the the another upside of that is that the interest rate increases won't be anything like 2022-23, where they rose by 450 basis points, a massive increase for the ECB. So, that's the broadly positive. What about some of the bad? I'm going to focus on the Irish public finances here because, like most economists, I worry about the public finances. Let's have a look at corporation tax. So, as we all know, corporation tax has just been extraordinary in Ireland in recent years. This puts it in comparison with our other member states of 2024, and as you can see, much bigger economies, Poland, Belgium, for example, Ireland's long overtaken both of those countries in terms of the amount of tax revenues it's bringing in. So, very strong corporation tax revenues, even by comparative standards of much bigger economies. What about um something that gets less attention? How much personal tax is collected each year? Well, as of the end of last year, it got up to 45 billion. So, that's income tax, USC, and employees PRSI combined. Now, that's 15 That's three times higher than the 15 or so billion that was collected around the time of the crash, which as you can see from the chart there fell back until around 2010 despite big increases in the rates and has a tripled since then. Now, that's despite narrowing the tax base. About 30% of people don't pay income tax. Now, I I fear that we're we're making a similar mistake to [snorts] to the the Celtic Tiger period in narrowing the tax base. And also, these the the very high rates of marginal tax 52 55% for depending on your line of business at low marginal rates is is is a significant disincentive to work in in my view. And those rates need to be brought down so they don't so that people get to keep more than more of their money than the government takes from them, which in my view is is fundamentally unfair. And about about spending. Well, as we can see, this is social protection expenditure. This includes things like health care free health care as well. So, it it it's the widest range of um social protection expenditure including benefits, etc. And as we can see, that's kind of followed an unusual pattern. It grew very rapidly during the Celtic Tiger. When things were bad, it flatlined. And then since things have got got got gone well again, it's been rising. One might think it should go the other way. So, maybe that I will before going on to the ugly, I will try and stop that and get some reflections from Robert. >> Yeah, thanks, Don. I think first of all on your assessment of inflation, which is obviously critical in terms of interest rates and growth in the immediate term prospects, I think your analysis of this recent bout of inflation compared to the post-pandemic is correct. I think the numbers are pretty clear on that. The shock to gas prices, nothing like it. Oil prices have obviously gone up, but they're oscillating a lot depending on what happens in in the straight and and and and different stages of negotiations and ceasefires and so on. I think so. I think at this stage you're right that the type of shock we've experienced and the likely in prospect is is is not nearly as damaging as we had previously. The one The one area I think I'd probably disagree with you on is in terms of well, what what what's caused that sort of moderation and will that be sustained and what's going to happen in the future given more recent events that last week you can see prices are back up again. Oil prices are back up again. And I think if if the the the political situation doesn't improve, there is I think a greater risk now that supply constraints will lead to a further spike in prices. And the reason I say that is because the release of very significant volume from stores around the world has really moderated the impact of of what's happened and that's only can happen once. Obviously, the the the the stocks can't be replenished. They they're way down and release of all those reserves uh in North America and Europe and China have moderated the supply impact of what's happened. So, I think if this continues continues into the summer and into the autumn well, then I I think we could be looking at a very difficult situation. But again, of course, nobody knows what's going to happen with the politics of it. Nobody knows and and maybe as we get beyond the November elections in America, maybe the politics of this will will improve and we'll see a more lasting a more lasting ceasefire stabilization of of flows through the through the strait. So, I I I don't disagree with you, but I think there's still risks and it really depends on the geopolitics. But, you know, I know you're going to talk a little bit about about that later. >> In terms of >> Yeah, just just can I just respond to that? Yeah, look, absolutely there is there is a risk and that point about supplies reserve supplies being used up. But, I would I'd also add that, you know, markets are dynamic. The Saudis have pumping the oil they would often send out via the Strait of Hormuz. They're piping it across. They have a pipe that goes out to the Red Sea. So, most of their oil is getting out to the world market but via the Red Sea. And obviously the other producers outside the region also see higher prices and increase production. So, you know, the market is dynamic and I think that's maybe something that just gets forgotten that, you know, producers aren't going to just sit on their hands and just behave as though nothing happened. If there are higher prices, people will will respond to higher prices with higher production. So, I think that's also a factor that sort of causes me to be a little bit less worried. And then just final point to say that, you know, when was when did oil price the oil price hit its highest ever? It it reached over $200 a barrel in today's money in 2008. Now, we all know that what happened after that. We had the biggest recession we ever had or certainly in living memory, the Great Recession, the financial crisis. Now, you know, what would have happened if we didn't have financial crisis? Would the oil price have caused a downturn at that level? Who knows? But, you know, I think it's just worth putting in historical context. We we've had much higher oil prices in the past without having serious trouble. So, that's another thing that sort of reassures me without taking away from your point that you know, reserves are are depleted and and it it could make it cause things to go up and there are there certainly I'm not dismissing the risks. There are risks uh but I'm certainly less concerned about them than I suppose the average the narrative. >> And it is it is always interesting the extent to which markets respond new supplies, new ways of getting product to market and then the prices had the increase in prices and how that's reflected in people's behavior on the demand side as well. So I think you know like obviously that the price is there to create equilibrium between demand and supply. And it's doing its thing even though of course it can be very difficult for for lots of actors in the economy. So yeah, I agree I agree with the resilience point but I think I would probably again a danger here of breaking out of in consensus again then that's always a problem with economists. They do tend to agree mostly when they get together that look it's different to what happened after the pandemic. But there's there are still potential risks ahead and they all depend on the geo the geo the geopolitics. On the the the fiscal side like I think look I think what you said about corporation tax and the dependence I think it's it's it's we all know that. Everyone on this call knows that. I think the government have responded to varying degrees of that and trying to allocate money to various funds and to try save some of that money and of course we can all argue about whether that's sufficient or not and people will have different views on that. I think the general comments about narrowing the tax base I think it's always a concern that we need to have broad sustainable taxes in the event of economic shocks to ensure that we can then fund whatever deficit would appear and keep keep the state keep the state books in in in balance. So I think all those comments about corporation tax and issues around personal taxes are well made. I think overall though we would have to look at I think two things. First of all the size of the surplus that we've been running and that'll be in general government terms taking account of all these different transfers to funds. So we still we are still running general surpluses down. I don't forgive me if I'm wrong here, but that's close to the numbers that I used to be of 3% plus, and we're doing that for for some time during a period when the the state has expanded. So, we are still running surpluses, and we're reducing the debt. And again, people can argue that they should be uh should be done faster. Uh and all that is putting in place buffers in the event that something happens because we'll have a buffer a period of going from surplus to a deficit if that's required. And with with the debt coming down lower, that improves the overall sustainability and the ability of of us to to fund in the market. I think a big issue as well, when it comes to looking at the the state's balance sheet, is that our debt has a very long maturity profile and the redemption profile again, which was a real concern uh back in in '12, '13, '14, '15, '16, we had a lot of uh the the the debt maturity of the debt was much shorter, and it's longer duration now. And again, I think that helps from a fiscal sustainability perspective. But, the final point I'd make here, which I think is something that people don't talk about, is that the fit fiscal sustainability fiscal position is ultimately a function of the sustainability of private financing. And the surplus it all looked very good in 2004-2007, but during that stage, we had a lot of imbalances, and we were funding uh externally. We earned external surplus. So, uh the state wasn't borrowing, but the private sector was borrowing abroad. Uh and consumers were borrowing, and and we were funding our investment needs from abroad. This time round, we have a large surplus, full employment, and we have a large external deficit. So, the economy you would think is better balanced, and the financing of the fiscal side financing is is more sustainable, I would I would think. So, uh like I I I I wouldn't uh characterize uh you know, the fiscal position where we are as bad. You could argue maybe that uh given how well the economy has been doing, that perhaps we should be more on the prudent side. But again, And that's a political economy question. Uh and that's obviously a very difficult challenge for any government government in Ireland or any government in in a a Western European democracy. How can you plan for the future when there endless of course short-term demands for spending on this that and the other? Yeah, and look, you know, if if you went back to April of last year when the tariffs were being introduced, you know, I think a lot of people were very fearful about what the effect the current administration in the US would have on the multinational sector here. But the big sort of on the on the goods side, pharmaceuticals weren't tariffed, which meant that Ireland is actually one of the lowest effective tariffs tariff rates going into the US of any EU country. And nothing was done on the tax side that would have sort of pushed American companies out of Ireland back to the US. So we we've dodged a couple of bullets there. So you know, that's that's that's a really important in in terms of lowering the risk. Now of course there there are as you say there are risks and there are particular risks if the US administration wanted to come down on on for example the pharmaceutical sector and bring it back to the US or if the EU side did something to the US tech sector in some sort of trade conflict, that could be damaging here. But you know, those those are the risks we live with and maybe they're not as not as big as they were in April of last year when this whole tariff issue started. Hopefully things will will stabilize. Okay, good. Well, look, let me share again and go on and look at some of the bad and the ugly. So clearly the I think it's important to say that geopolitics is is talked about a lot but actually has less impact on economies as as people might think. If you think things like big shocks like 9/11 or the Iraq invasion of Iraq in 2003, it's actually quite hard to see any impact for for certainly countries outside the region of those events. So they often get a big a big focus, but sometimes they're not as significant as they appear economically for those further away. Um even with the invasion of Ukraine, um the impact for the European economy certainly was negative in terms of those gas prices. It wasn't good, but it didn't cause the, you know, European economy to go into recession. Um but as I said, uh if if war were to spread in Europe, if one of the EU or NATO member states were to be attacked, I think that would be a game-changer. Uh and unfortunately, the risk of a a regional war in Europe now can no longer be ruled out. Something that was pretty much unthinkable 4 or 5 years ago. One of the big things that concerns me, and we discussed it in the last episode of Insights 2 weeks ago, is if our gas interconnector were to go down, we're hugely dependent on gas from a single pipeline coming from Scotland. Uh we need that gas for both the electricity system and to keep our homes and businesses going. Uh if that were to go down, there would be a major shock to the Irish economy. I I would argue of a COVID uh a scale shock, um but more economically damaging because we simply wouldn't have the energy. Uh businesses would have to shut. Uh we could have a really difficult situation if that were to happen. So that that certainly is is a big worry in terms of how the geopolitics of our region could affect us. So some other clouds on the horizon, um the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill is going ahead. Uh there has been dozens of US lawmakers who warned against doing that, and who've highlighted that existing American laws could kick in against Irish companies, Irish people, American American citizens who in any way cooperate with this bill. And given the importance of multinational sector here, the US multinational sector, uh that has to be a real concern. And indeed, in the Department of Foreign Affairs analysis of regulatory impact analysis of the bill, it did acknowledge that there were there are significant economic risks to going for Ireland to go ahead with with this bill. What about financial fragility? Well, I suppose anyone who lived through 2008 is always aware of how complex financial financial system is and how things can go wrong and how that feeds into the real economy very quickly. There's been a lot of growth in the private credit and equity markets since that time. I certainly know that speaking to central bankers, they're very concerned about it, in large part because they just don't know what's going on under the bonnet. They don't have the the data that they have on the banking sector and and the other financial institutions. So, there is considerable concern in central banking about the risks in the private private credit private equity markets and how they could spill over into into the rest of the financial system. What about a trade war with China? Maybe it's gone a bit under the radar, but the relations between Brussels and Beijing on trade have been going downhill fast. Looks like the EU is is backing off, mainly because of fears it can't win a trade war with China, but certainly there is risk of significant tensions with China over trade. And then, in my view, the biggest geopolitical risk of all is an invasion of Taiwan or war in East Asia, something that would be really transformative for the world economy given how important East Asia is now for the rest of the global economy, and very different from Russia, which apart from energy was really is insignificant in global economic terms. But, East Asia is massively important, and a major war in that part of the world is to to my mind the biggest geopolitical risk that we have. Maybe I'll stop there again, Robert. And uh >> Yeah, like I think yeah, I think down there all our potential risks. I think it's good to list them and document them, and it's good to try to figure out firstly what the impact would be for us if if some of those materialized, and what mitigants do we have? Obviously, for some of them we we we don't really have any mitigants, but I think more generally, it's about doing that horizon scanning and looking at, "Okay, how prepared would we be?" So, just on a few of them, clearly I think, you know, my view is that the the fiscal side of things, I think is is is better than it was previously. I think while there are vulnerabilities there, I think the I think the the the position it will enable us, I think, to withstand different economic circumstances and a a difficult shock. I think regulation of the financial system, to my mind, seems to be at a completely different place than it was previously. And it's always interesting to think if some of those risks materialize, what impact would they have on actors here in Ireland, and what impact could they have on the balance sheet of the Irish state? In that sense, the risks which you've outlined, which I think are potential risks in terms of the private side, if some of the the worst-case scenarios did unfold, while there'd be an economic shock, there wouldn't be necessarily then a specific hit to the balance sheet of the Irish state, or or would disproportionately affect actors in the economy compared to other economies, the UK or or the US. So, I think, you know, when we think about the next recession when it comes, it's going to be very different to what we've had before, okay? And I think one of the different features from the last the the Great Recession is obviously the financial risks are different, and we've had much different regulation. I think the resilience of infrastructure is something which I think is an area again where I know there's a lot of focus, and I know the state system is doing more in terms of preparing, and you mentioned the gas network, which is an obvious an obvious risk, and I think this is a I think this is really important for for states like ourselves in the context of the European Union because a lot of these discussions take place in the European Union that we do think about well, what what how can we respond and what resilience can be built into the system? And I think uh disruptions to gas, I think it's it's probably up there with the most the most significant risks if something did happen. So, yeah, I think Don, I think you know, like all these exercises, we can all list them, things that could happen. The question for us is are are we as prepared as we can be? Have we thought about what our response might might be? Uh but I think it's fair to say that they're there. The maybe the the the the probability of of some of them materializing is very low, but of course, the impact if they did would could be quite quite significant on on the economy. And again, it comes back down to our function as an as an open economy. Uh we are always going to be vulnerable to what happens internationally given the nature of the structure of of of our economy. >> And I just to say I I alluded to it the last insights was with Eamonn O'Reilly of uh Engineers Ireland and we we went through in detail um issues around uh gas disruption and ways of mitigating it such as storage capacity and having an LNG facility uh put in place. So, people can go back to that to listen in more detail to that if they wish. So, look, let me end on the on on the more positive uh stuff um of which there's plenty and it's it's particularly important to say that these in these times where um there is something maybe a bit of catastrophizing going on in the world. Um so, important to to to highlight the good stuff as well. So, the 2020s, the way I think about economies has has changed over over this decade because if on New Year's Eve of 2019, uh you had said that we were going to have a pandemic, soaring inflation, an invasion of of Ukraine, a huge war in Europe, ECB interest rates rising by 450 basis points as previously mentioned, US tariffs and all the uncertainty uh and the Middle East um and the Strait of Hormuz being closed. If I had seen that in a crystal ball, I would have thought the world economy would now be in a depression. So, it certainly seems that not only are these economies in general uh are more resilient than one one might have thought. Just, you know, that the interest rate thing alone, uh I think most economists would have thought that a 450 basis points increase over just 14 months would have been enough to crush any economy. But, it just seems as though interest rates don't have the same impact on economies as they used to have. Uh just one element of that piece that that's surprising. But, look, I think the fact that economies have been so resilient uh is something to is something to celebrate and and certainly a positive. Um one positive on the public spending side is the increase of capital expenditure. So, thankfully, capital expenditure uh is is growing much more much more rapidly than current expenditure, as you can see uh from this graphic. And, you know, we economists tend very much to agree that capital expenditure uh pays for itself, unlike other forms of of expenditure uh and is good thing. So, certainly, the fact that there's been a there has been a real prioritization of uh of of capex has been a but government capex cap capex has been has been a a positive for the economy uh now and in the future. Also, resilience globalization, we hear uh the the end of globalization and slowbalization and terms like this uh a lot. But, when you go looking at the data, it's actually very hard to find evidence. Uh if we look at volumes of growth global trade, this isn't uh this isn't the price effects are are this is basically the number of containers and and stuff that's shipped around by volume. As we can see, uh the world continues to become more integrated uh for trade. And, the same thing with services and services trade, cross-border services trade, FDI flows may not be as fast as they once were, but it's still they still continue. And the stock of FDI in the world continues to rise. So, uh this is particularly important for us in Ireland, of course, as we are a highly globalized economy. If globalization were were coming apart, that would be bad for our model. So, thankfully, uh it isn't uh despite uh the policy moves that have taken place in more protectionist terms that have that that particularly from the United States in recent times, uh but globalization remains on course. Um so, few takeaways from that, um multinationals are still doing well well here. They're still still doing doing more business. Um protectionism will cause some difficulties. And as as as mentioned, if there were to be war in East Asia, that would be hugely disruptive for global supply chains. But avoiding that, uh I think we can be look forward to a broadly open global economy uh where companies, both Irish and multinational, will continue to be able to manage their supply chains and source from different parts of the world. Uh big positive to to my mind is the labor market, uh which we just don't hear we certainly hear a lot a lot about it in Ireland, where as each quarter, almost every quarter, we see new record numbers of people at work. But that's also true more widely in Europe. About 25 million net jobs have been added to the EU um to EU employment count since the euro crisis ended in 2013. Um and also, as is the case in Ireland, nearly every quarter we see a new record for the numbers of people at work across the EU. Um When was the last time the the unemployment rate in Europe was as low as it is now? You have to go all the way back to 1982. So, 44 years uh since the unemployment rate has been as low as it's been. We had decades of of unemployment of an unemployment rate around 10% uh 8 to 10% even higher in Europe. And it's now down to 6% and that's the lowest since 1982. So really positive there. Other good things in the labor market in Europe is low unemployment and near record record employment rates. That's the share of the adult population working are at record levels in most European countries. One reason for that is there are fewer people retiring early, so more people are working later into life. And importantly, and the question comes up, those of us who look at the data from Europe and the US, there is no sign yet at any rate that AI is causing job destruction to an actual effect that it's affecting the aggregate numbers. So employment is still growing well in all cohorts including the 18 to 24 year old cohorts despite some narrative that there's been a big reduction in hiring for for among graduates. It's certainly not showing up in the labor market data yet. So takeaway for employers, finding and keeping staff will remain among the big worries. Um Finally, just to wrap up with some more good news, tech, number of tech jobs in Europe has gone from 6 million a decade ago to more than 10 million. So huge increase in the number of tech jobs. It's often not recognized that the tech sector in Europe is by far the fastest growing when it comes to employment. That's about a 60% increase in just 10 years. No other sector is matching that. And now one in 20 people in Europe is a tech specialist. So the kind of notion that Europe is some um kind of museum economy is just wrong. And then just to conclude, you know, Ireland's massive increase in tech employment has gone from 100,000 a decade ago to nearly 200,000. But there can be some bumps as we see. There's been a a contraction in tech employment over the past year. Jury's out on the reason for that. Most people think it's because the companies are focusing more on their own capital expenditure and cutting back on employment to make sure they don't lose out from the AI revolution. So, I'll finish on that and back over to Europe. >> You're you're If you're very optimistic finish, Dan, I have to say and it'll cheer people up as they return return to to work for the the afternoon. But it is in comparative terms, if you look at European's labor market and you know, you don't have to you can you can pick up a lot of a lot of publications and see stories about Europe failing and the end of Europe and slipping behind China and and the US. And for those of us of our of our vintage, Dan, mid-40s or whatever we are, like we we remember a time when it seemed as if high unemployment in Europe, 9, 10, 11% was the norm. It seemed incredibly sticky. Couldn't get unemployment down, youth unemployment, lack of lack of opportunity for young people, a labor market that just wasn't wasn't functioning. And to see those numbers, it it really is it is some performance and I think it speaks to the the general point which I think is a key theme. When you strip out the noise and the narrative, which which seems to dominate some sometimes, when you actually look at the data, in Europe and Ireland, Europe just speak about Europe generally, it's a story of remarkable resilience on the labor market side. And that, you know, I think that's the story of the last of the last while for me. It is incredibly resilient that unemployment is falling, employment is still to grow. And if you look at If you look at old measures of stagflation, which I had a go at there with the unemployment and inflation, the the misery index we used to call it back in the day, our misery index is pretty low compared to some of the historical ones, but you look at inflation and unemployment together. So, I think that's a very, very positive very, very positive story. I think one comment I'd make about capital expenditure, I think it is good to see that you know, the the economy is growing very quickly and the capital stock you know we we've we've uh the the supply side of potential economy hasn't grown as much and we can see that in terms of housing and transport and some of the the consequence of that growth relative to capital investment. It's good to see the capital investment grow now and it's good to see that Minister Chambers is focusing on delivery. But there are still issues there around planning and there issues around how we can do more how we can do more quickly. But it is I think positive that we are using some of the proceeds from this exceptional period to invest in in the future. I think I think that's that's positive. But I'm afraid Don we're we're breaking out of consensus once again here. This is this is terrible that I don't have more things to disagree with you about. >> With that let me wind up Robert and thank you very much for giving us your time and your thoughts on on the economic outlook today and thanks to the audience as well for for watching. Have a good afternoon.