Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 26 October 2022

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Post-budget 2023 Examination: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Matt McGann:

Yes. It seems likely they will rise considering a lot of it was termed out at historically low interest rate levels, so, yes, that is absolutely the case. All of that speaks to the need not to lose sight of debt sustainability and fiscal sustainability in the immediate term. By bringing our debt levels down, we build our fiscal buffers and the markets take cognisance of that. It is about generally pursuing, for want of a better word, sensible macro fiscal policy, and we have seen in the UK what can happen when you do not, as Mr. Cassidy alluded to earlier. The problem with market discipline is that it is not linear or uniform. It can go away and the markets do not seem interested in you, and then it comes back very suddenly and very heavy. Especially for a small country, that can be really brutal. We know from our own history that we went into the financial crisis with 25% of debt to GDP, but even the Latvians and Lithuanians, who did not have the kind of financial crisis we had, went in with debt in the 30% or 40% range and got priced out of the market. One does not have to hold Latvian or Lithuanian debt. A fund manager needs to hold French debt, UK debt and US treasuries, but not particularly debt from small countries. There is a premium on maintaining market confidence for small countries.

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