Economist 'Stands Over' Controverisal Cost Of Working Report

The author of a report, which stated a high proportion of Irish people with children would be better off on the dole than in employment, has defended the “bottom-line” conclusion of his work.

Former ESRI economist Richard Tol, now a professor at Sussex University, said he used two separate sets of CSO data in the paper entitled The Costs of Working in Ireland.

He said while the paper was not formally reviewed ahead of publication “a number of people have looked at the paper, including a number of senior people at the ESRI”.

However the ESRI said last night the paper had been removed from its website over concerns the public “could be misled by its content”.

Prof Tol told RTÉ: “I have absolutely no problem with my professionalism here. You may say something about the ESRI’s professionalism, but not mine.”

Continuing: “There are of course still serious issues with the data because in Ireland there is no real data set that really goes to the heart of this so we had to combine two data sets that were collected for different purposes but as far as I know we did that correctly.”

He said that following a revision, the University of Sussex may publish the paper. “We are currently revising the flow of the paper but have no reason to change the conclusions. It will probably be published as a working paper of the University of Sussex and resubmitted.”

(H)