The ESRI has a well established reputation as a forecaster of longer-term economic trends.
In 1995, the institute predicted growth would average almost 5 per cent in the years to 1998 and would even reach 7 per cent in some years. At the time the forecast was gently laughed at by many.
The economy was only recovering from the currency crisis and a sustained economic boom looked remote. With hindsight we now know that the prediction was even a little pessimistic.
Indeed, even prior to that the ESRI's Prof John FitzGerald was the only forecaster in the years from 1986 to predict that a sustained upswing in the economy was possible.
In the last forecast in 1999, the ESRI predicted the economy would grow between 5 and 6 per cent in the years to 2001.
The scale of the depreciation of the new currency, the euro, was partly responsible for seeing these figures undershoot, as exporters got a massive and unforeseen competitiveness boost.
Another factor was that the institute's researchers believed the economy simply could not keep growing at record rates into the future.
The one difficulty the ESRI has had is in forecasting turning points, a notoriously error-prone exercise from any perspective. In a small, open economy like Ireland, which is exceptionally vulnerable to outside shocks, it is almost impossible.
The average error over the past number of years has been about one percentage point off gross national product. That is a record other forecasters would be proud of. They predicted that the economy would reach full employment, with the unemployment rate hovering round 5 per cent, a prediction that was exceeded, with even the number of long-term unemployed falling rapidly over the past year or two.
They were also a little pessimistic about the rise in living standards, predicting real after-tax wage rises of 3 per cent.
Given the large tax giveaways in the last two budgets, this has been exceeded despite soaring inflation.
But even at that time, the warnings were clear. The ESRI warned that a major fall in the US equity market could knock GNP growth back by 2 per cent. That looks to be at least partly what has happened this year.
Even before the World Trade Centre attacks, equity markets were back sharply and the US looked to be heading for recession. Serious job losses had been obvious among the US high-tech firm located here.
What is happening now is an extension and deepening of this process.
The other danger was excessive wage rises knocking competitiveness, along with a lack of investment in infrastructure. That happened to some extent but was offset by the large depreciation of the currency. If the currency should strengthen, the news could be worse.
But policymakers will be hoping that once again Prof John Fitz-Gerald and his colleagues have erred on the side of caution.
This year they predict average growth of 5 per cent to 2005, with substantial fall-offs from that possible in the short term, depending on the continuing reaction to the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th. The fallout over the next two years could be as high as four percentage points, they warn.