For example, in February this year, we published our first Quarterly Bulletin (QB) of the year. The Irish economy grew strongly in 2019. Given the measurement issues with GDP in Ireland, we tend to focus on underlying domestic demand and we were forecasting a growth rate in this measure of 3.7 per cent for 2020.
The data also suggested that the public finances were improving, with the general government balance in surplus for 2019. We were also forecasting 2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  that the unemployment rate to average 4.8 per cent in 2020. How times have changed.