Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 November 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2019
Chapter 17 - Ireland Apple Escrow Fund

11:30 am

Mr. John McCarthy:

Absolutely. I suppose the key thing is that there may have been an impact on the Exchequer. It was more than offset by an impact on Irish Water. Both entities are within general government. From a general government perspective, which is the bottom line from a European perspective because it is what investors look at and so forth, it was absolutely neutral. This transaction had important cash flow savings to the State by way of lower debt service payments by replacing commercial debt with cheaper sovereign debt, so to speak. This was, therefore, a positive without any general government balance implication.