Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 6 July 2017
Public Accounts Committee
2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2015
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 18 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council
Finance Accounts 2015
9:00 am
Mr. John McCarthy:
We have a legal requirement to get to 60% of GDP. It must be corrected at a sufficient pace and that pace is one twentieth of the difference between the actual debt ratio in a current year and the 60%. To give the Deputy a simple example, if we were at 100%, the difference is 40%, so it needs to be corrected by 2% per annum, that is, one twentieth of the difference, which is 40%. It has to come down by 2% every year.