Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
Committee on Budgetary Oversight
Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council
Mr. Michael Tutty:
Yes, and those are matters on which the Government has political decisions to make. As I said, we are not going to comment on what sort of carbon taxes we should have and how a carbon tax should be mitigated.
On the debt ratios, even though debt interest rates are very low, we still have a very high level of debt as a proportion of our GNI*. We are about the fifth largest in the world, so even with low interest rates we still have a big problem. We do not know how long low interest rates will last. If the capital markets see us getting back into difficulties and needing to borrow more and more, we could have big problems. The best way to mitigate that is to get our debt ratio down as quickly as possible and be less dependent on the financial markets.