Among a number of public positions, he served as chairman of the National Economic and Social Council from 1973 to 1978 and as Governor of the Bank of Ireland from 1985 to 1991.
He has been credited with playing a key role in the transformation of Ireland's economy from one based on agriculture and protectionism to one dominated by industry, free trade and services.
Born in Portadown in Northern Ireland on 19 October 1923, he attended Trinity College Dublin, where he was appointed an assistant lecturer after graduating in 1946.
He then returned to Trinity to lecture in the Department of Economics under George Alexander Duncan, who was then Whately Chair of Political Economy.
[7] During this time, he was involved in the implementation of T. K. Whitaker's First Programme for Economic Expansion, an economic programme for transforming the Republic of Ireland's economy from one dominated by agriculture (and then mired in depression) and protectionism, to one based on industry, services and free trade.