Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with some of the points the Deputy has raised in sequence. On where we are from a debt point of view, the Deputy will be aware that the NTMA issued its annual report yesterday. It is the key agency of the State involved in managing our stock of public debt. The overall trajectory of debt as a percentage of national income is positive. In 2019, that figure stands at 61% whereas it stood at 120% in 2012. Nonetheless, the stock of public debt that we have is still high, at approximately €203 billion. The most obvious way open to us to reduce it in the short to medium term is by running budget surpluses, if the management of Brexit allows us to do so.

In terms of other risks in addition to Brexit, the key one that I would be aware of is the tone in global trade at the moment. For an open, trading economy like Ireland, if there is a shift in tone in global trade, it has the potential to affect our external trading performance, which in turn would have an effect on our national finances. In terms of information that will be available to us in September, at that point a new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will have been in place for almost two months. There should be a degree of clarity regarding the intentions of that person.

On carbon taxes, a decision has not been made in respect of what I will propose to do. We will publish our tax strategy group papers at the end of July as we do every year. They will include a paper on carbon taxes which will be informed by a public consultation, which is closing soon, regarding different options for how carbon taxation could be implemented and how the revenue from it could be used in the economy and society.