John McCarthy, Assistant Sec General and Chief Economist, Department of Finance Economic Division

John McCarthy is the Assistant Secretary General and Chief Economist for the Department of Finance Economic Division. With over twenty years of experience as an economist, he previously served as a senior economist in the Department’s macroeconomic analysis unit and within the Central Bank of Ireland. He is the Chair of the Economic Policy Committee’s output gap working group. He is also a member of the National Statistics Board, an advisor to the National Competitiveness Council, and the Irish member of the OECD’s Economic Policy Committee.

Conor O’Toole, Associate Research Professor, ESRI

Dr Conor O’Toole is an Associate Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute. He previously held the position of Manager – Real-Financial Linkages Team and Senior Economist at the Financial Stability Division of the Central Bank of Ireland. At the Central Bank of Ireland, Conor worked extensively on macroprudential policy issues with specific focus on the mortgage market. He also worked on broader issues regarding the surveillance of household and corporate financing vulnerabilities.

Before joining the Central Bank, Conor worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the ESRI and as an economist for IBM's Global Centre for Economic Analysis, London Economics and Indecon Economic Consultants. He also worked as a PhD researcher at the United Nations University —World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland. In his current role, Conor will have responsibility for research on housing and household financing, enterprise development and corporate finance and banking. He was a co-author on the European Competitiveness Report 2014 Chapter on Access to Finance and Firm Growth completed for EC DG Enterprise and Industry.