Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Public Accounts Committee

2014 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Accounts of the National Treasury Management Agency
National Treasury Management Agency Financial Statements 2015

9:00 am

Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

There are a couple of impacts. The first is the market impact of the surprise of the statistics. I said at the time that we fielded a lot of calls from investors, post the number, and there was a lot of explaining to do, and to some extent, if one is explaining, one is losing. GDP as a statistic and therefore the debt-to-GDP ratio and other ratios we use that include GDP are less valuable today than they were a couple of weeks ago because they have been distorted and are more difficult to explain. Investors we have been speaking to are already moving on to look at other indicators of our economic health and ability to repay rather than relying on the traditional debt-to-GDP ratio. It is less valuable as a tool than it was and if economists or the CSO comes up with some new series that is GDP without the distortions, then perhaps we could go back to having some confidence in that but for the moment investors are looking at other indicators in terms of the economy.