Wasting valuable opportunities? The Irish parliamentary reaction to economic crises

A crisis, according to the old saying, is also an opportunity. Ireland has found itself confronted by at least three major economic crises in recent years. This paper seeks to investigate if parliament has availed of the opportunities presented by these crises in order to consolidate or strengthen its role in economic governance. First, Ireland - like a number of other Eurozone countries - Greece, Cyprus and Portugal and to a more limited extent, Spain – was the object of an EU/IMF bailout.The role of the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament) in establishing accountability at national and European level in relation to the bailout is thus considered. Secondly, however, there has been a more generalised Eurozone economic crisis, leading to the introduction of both tightened and broadened economic controls and the introduction of standardised EU-wide budgetary procedures including the European Semester. The standard of Irish parliamentary control in this has been criticised by writers such as Kreilinger and Barrett. This paper seeks to examine, in a comparative light whether such criticisms are justified. Finally, and most recently, there has been the Covid-inspired economic crisis which has led to the introduction of the so-called Recovery and Resilience Facility, and the concomitant creation and implementation of national Recovery and Resilience Plans, with the Irish Plan being approved in July 2021. Here again, this paper investigates whether, and how the Oireachtas has sought to keep pace in the formulation of both European and national policy responses to this crisis. In doing this, the paper seeks to build on the author's own extensive previous published work in this field and to build on the scholarship, inter alia, of Fasone, Hefftler et al, Fromage, Borońska-Hryniewiecka, Auel and Kreilinger on this issue.