Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 27 September 2017
Committee on Budgetary Oversight
Business of Select Committee
Ex-ante Scrutiny of Budget 2018 (Resumed): Minister for Finance
2:00 pm
Mr. John McCarthy:
The fiscal rules are twofold. The MTO is the endpoint and to guide one there we use the expenditure benchmark. If we apply the expenditure benchmark for next year one will get between €100 million and €150 million more but that does not mean compliance with the MTO. Due to the fact that it has been policy ever since we corrected the excessive deficit in 2015, then 2018 has always been the endpoint. That is why, in the summer economic statement, between €100 and €150 million is reduced from the fiscal space.