Sharon Donnery: Better data, to inform better policy

Opening remarks by Ms Sharon Donnery, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, at the Sixth Conference on Household Finance and Consumption, organized by the Central Bank of Ireland and the European Central Bank, Dublin, 16 December 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
17 December 2019

Good morning, and welcome to the sixth conference on Household Finance and Consumption.

I would like to thank both my colleagues in the Central Bank of Ireland and the ECB for all their hard work in organising what promises to be a fascinating network event.

Looking at the programme, and the range of topics; from inflation, housing, credit, and business cycles, to inequality, demographic change, and of course, monetary policy, you're in for a stimulating couple of days.

What I see as a common thread across this diverse range of issues is ultimately, how better data informs better policy.

Like many policy institutions, a decade ago, the crisis, prompted us to reflect on the type of data we collect, how it is analysed, and, crucially, how the analysis feeds through to policy decisions.