The topics of inflation and labour market dynamics need little justification in the current context, or indeed to this audience, but I believe that they are also very fitting topics for a Donal Nevin lecture.
Both issues were never far from the economic policy discussions that Donal Nevin was involved in over his long career.1 As a founding member and former president of the ESRI, and having served with distinction in the Department of Industry and Commerce and as general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions before he retired in 1989, Mr Nevin was known as a man of great intellect and integrity2, who had devoted his life to public service.