Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 8 December 2021

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

I agree. Every month, people look at the Exchequer returns very carefully but there are significant limits to what they tell us. First, they only do so on a cash basis rather than on an accruals basis and, second, they only cover the Exchequer part. Local government spending is becoming more important as well because a lot of the housing investment is being done outside the Exchequer. We do not have any visibility on that so it would be very useful. It is a long-standing request from the council but we should focus on doing it on what is called a general government basis, which is broader and is on an accruals basis. That way, we would have a much better idea of what was going on in real time instead of having to wait until the end of the year to figure out what happened.

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