Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 December 2015

Public Accounts Committee

2014 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2014
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 3 - Cost of Bank Stabilisation Measures as at the end of 2014
Finance Accounts 2014

10:00 am

Mr. John McCarthy:

The NTMA has certainly been active in the market in terms of refinancing, including refinancing the IMF debt which, I think, carried an interest rate of about 5% with much lower debt.

I think it is important to bear in mind when we talk about the debt figure - the 97%, for instance, that we are talking about for 2015 - that includes cash and semi-liquid assets that the NTMA holds. If one excludes that - it amounts to about 17% of GDP - our net debt is much lower; it is at 80% of GDP. We would see that as the more relevant metric. Certainly when the credit rating agencies come in to talk to us, we would try to highlight that and that is the one they would be interested in. So there is a big buffer there, so to speak, for prudent reasons.

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