"What did you do in 1916, fight? Cower under the bed? Or side with the Brits?" To distract from their own inaction, sleeveens would ask this question of others after the Easter Rising.

On the anniversary of it a similar question is being posed now. "What did you do during the boom – warn us of disaster or hobnob with the bankers?" The loudest answers come from self-promoting 'boys who cried wolf'. Those who did the real fighting don't feel we need to justify ourselves. Until that is, lies are told about us.

Last Sunday, you insinuated that I was a "player" (causer, presumably) of the recession because I had written a book entitled The Best is Yet to Come. Only fools judge a book by its cover. Here is my war record, of which I am proud:

Only a few days after leaving the ECB to become economics editor of the Irish Times, I wrote on 13 July 2005 that lending threatened the economy. On 29 July 2005, I wrote that growth was "not sustainable". On 19 August 2005, I wrote that construction was "hugely disproportionate" in the economy. On 31 March 2006 in a piece that began "Stop the economy I want to get off", I warned that financial regulation had broken down. On 6 July 2006, I warned of an imminent collapse in public finances. On 17 July 2006, at a Fianna Fáil conference, I challenged Brian Cowen to draw up contingency plans for a possible recession. In October 2006 I told ISME's annual conference (chaired by George Lee) that a downturn would start in 2008. During the 2007 election campaign, I relentlessly wrote about how all party manifestos were based on illusory growth assumptions.

Later that year – in a book praised by TK Whitaker and others – I warned again of the downturn but added that our population would keep growing. With the right policies we could restore prosperity by 2020, which I still believe. The first two predictions have come true. To offset the book's short-term pessimism, I called it The Best is Yet to Come.

Marc Coleman

Newstalk