Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 6 December 2016

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

EU Directorate-General Economic and Financial Affairs: Discussion

5:00 pm

Mr. Carlos Martínez Mongay:

I do not think so. On the one hand, the State has to find stable revenue sources which is important. On the other, even if today the State borrows money at low interest rates, in the future when interest rates go up, the State's debt will also balloon. The burden of the debt will depend on the future interest rates. The higher the debt, the higher the interest payments will be in the future. One does not borrow all the debt for, say, 20 years or 50 years. A small fraction of the debt is at a long-term rate but the rest of the debt has to be refinanced in the short term.

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