Marc Coleman

Marc Coleman presents "The Marc Coleman Show on Newstalk 106 to 108 writes an economics column for the Sunday Independent newspaper, and is a regular speaker on economic and policy issues. He is a former European Central Bank Economist, a former Economics Editor of the Irish Times and holds a scholarship MBA from UCD and has authored 2 bestselling books, one predicting Ireland's crisis and also its recovery (The Best is Yet to Come 2007), the other advocating structural reforms in Ireland's economy (Back from the Brink, 2009). He has been criticised for his opposition to the excessive power of trade unions in the public sector but is himself a member of the National Union of Journalists and his radio show provides regular representation to trade union viewpoints, although Coleman himself is regarded as center right.

Coleman was born in Dublin but lived as a child in Erlangen, Bavaria before returning to Ireland in the mid-1970s. He was a member of Fine Gael in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Coleman worked in Carr Communications before joining the Department of Foreign Affairs and then the Department of Finance and in 1997 he joined the European Monetary Institute which became the European Central Bank. In 2004 he was awarded a scholarship to do an MBA at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business (UCD) and became Irish Times The Irish Times Economics Editorin 2005He joined Newstalk in September 2007 as its Economics Editor and was given his own show in 2009. The show "The Marc Coleman Show" now broadcasts each Sunday. Coleman also writes for Ireland's largest Sunday paper, the Sunday Independent, and regularly speaks at public events in Ireland and internationally.

In 2011 he stood for the Seanad for a University of Dublin seat coming fifth in a field of 20candidates in a three-seat contest

Between 2005 and 2007 Coleman produced several articles warning of Ireland's coming economic crash.

He incorporated these warnings in a controversially titled book The Best is Yet to Come which repeated warnings about a possible crash (chapters 3,4 and 5) but stressed a positive view of Ireland's capacity to recover by 2020. The book forecast that strong growth in Ireland's population would continue through the crisis. Between 2006 and 2013 Ireland's population rose from 4.2 to 4.6 million (Census 2011, CSO). Coleman maintains this will provide a basis for restored prosperity by 2020.

Late in 2009, Coleman published "Back from the Brink" in which Coleman prescribed policies that he argued would accelerate economic recovery in Ireland and the world, such as overhauling the financial regulatory system that existed before the boom, reforming Ireland's political system and shifting growth from construction and property .

Common topics for discussion on his radio shows on Newstalk are: the state of the economy, social issues, the quality of media coverage of politics and renewing Ireland's party political system. He as a former statistician expressed skepticism about some polls evidence on referenda results.