Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 30 November 2023
Public Accounts Committee
Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Finance Accounts 2022
Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2022
Chapter 1 – Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2022
Chapter 2 – Reporting Ireland’s EU Transactions
Chapter 24 – Performance of the Ireland Apple Escrow Fund
Chapter 25 – Irish Fiscal Advisory Council
9:30 am
Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source
I will stay with the subject of the debt, on which there has been great progress. I did not realise the average maturity was quite so long. I was going to ask about how that interest rate profile will look over the medium term. From what Mr. McCarthy is saying, it is quite a good picture. We have a stated debt-to-GNI* target of 85% to reach by 2025. We hit 82.3% in 2022, which is good news.
We have hit and surpassed the stated target ahead of time. We are supposedly trying to get to 60% under EU fiscal rules and I note GDP, GNI*, etc. Given that we hit target three years early, are we revising the target to be a little more ambitious about that debt pay-down and where we would like the trajectory to go?
No comments