Considering the tumultuous situation now enveloping the Greek economy, there is an argument to be made that our own economy by comparison is doing quite well.

An IMF report last week remarked that the Irish economy is “firing on all cylinders” – but how true is that, and is the recovery reaching all in Ireland?

Former ESRI economist John Fitzgerald joined Shane Coleman on this week’s Sunday Show to examine the recovery, and look at what needs to happen from here, to both spread the benefits of any recovery and prevent another crash in the future.

“I am not surprised at the recovery,” Fitzgerald said.

The recovery hasn’t been good to all however and, in Fitzgerald’s view, “since the start of the recovery most people are slightly worse off. But the people who have really done well are the unemployed who found jobs. So far the recovery has been good for a minority of the population.”

Fitzgerald analysed why the economy has begun to rebound, the cost paid to survive and begin to escape the effects of the financial crash, and ask – could we lose the run of ourselves again?

The danger of giveaway budgets, of a return to the days of governments buying budgets and racking up debts, remains a worry, Fitzgerald said.

“The problem with Irish politicians is not that they don’t do what they promise, it’s that they do what they promise,” Fitzgerald said, remarking that the “the damage done to this economy was not in 2008 ... it was in the 2002- to 2007 period when policy was mad ... that’s when the damage was done.”

Could we end up repeating the same old mistakes again, and find ourselves blindly wandering towards economic oblivion once more?

“We won’t repeat the old mistakes,” Fitzgerald said. “But it’s the mistakes we haven’t thought of - those keep me awake at night.”

Listen below to the full interview with former ESRI economist John Fitzgerald via the player below