Results 14,981-15,000 of 26,396 for speaker:David Cullinane

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 5 - Fiscal Transparency (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: Why not? Whose responsibility is it? Does Mr. Moran have a responsibility to implement any of those recommendations?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 5 - Fiscal Transparency (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: I thank Mr. Moran for that answer. My question is that I am looking at a report the summary of which states that four recommendations were made to ensure that we have some level of uniformity in terms of accounting rules and procedures. We have heard from the Comptroller and Auditor General the rationale for that. It is a reasonable question and a straightforward answer would be welcome....

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 5 - Fiscal Transparency (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: Sorry, I was putting the question to Mr. Moran.

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 5 - Fiscal Transparency (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: I thank Mr. Beausang.

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 5 - Fiscal Transparency (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: I am not sure I got the answer that I was looking for but I thank Mr. Moran for the response anyway.

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: I would like clarity on an issue that was touched on regarding Mr. Moran's opening contribution. He referred to total Exchequer expenditure and gross Exchequer expenditure. What is the different between them?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: With regard to presentation of expenditure in the accounts, what figure is used?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: We might come back to that. I refer to the GDP issue in dealing with Government debt. Mr. Moran correctly said that it is not a reliable indicator for Ireland for various reasons. Mr. John McCarthy said that debt-to-GDP measurements in Ireland are pretty much irrelevant. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: But the problem is this measurement is not irrelevant. I will put questions to Mr. Moran first on this. When the fiscal rules are being implemented, what measurements are used?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: The legal measurement is GDP, not GNI* or a bespoke arrangement. Debt-to-GDP, therefore, is not irrelevant.

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: It is the legal requirement that we have to abide by when the rules are being implemented.

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: What we can agree on, whatever about its relevance, is it is unreliable. Mr. John McCarthy used the word "outlier" in the context of debt. We have a bizarre scenario where our debt-to-GDP ratio is being used to implement the fiscal rules. That is peculiar given it is an unreliable measurement. Are many other member states in a position where GDP is a difficulty?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: Why in Ireland?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: That is important because the implementation of policy is important and how we work out the fiscal rules. They are, at least, made to appear complicated but one of the measurements used to work out the fiscal space under the fiscal rules is debt-to-GDP ratio. When a state goes above or below a certain threshold relating to the ratio, that has an impact on how the rules are implemented. Is...

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: Okay. None of that answered my questions. However, it provided more clarity. I wish to break this down into layman's terms because it can bamboozle people who are not economists and who do not understand how it works. They hear terms such as "debt-to-GDP" and now there is GNI*. We use a host of measurements and we have to figure out which ones are the most accurate. We know for certain...

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: It does not strip out all multinational activity.

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: That is not the problem. The problem in Ireland is not so much that we have many multinationals. If they are producing goods and services, that will not be a problem. Is it the difficulty that a number of companies that are based here are booking a great deal of revenue but are not making anything here?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: They are not doing anything in terms of goods or services. Is that the problem?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: I will stop the witness there. Can he tell me, explicitly and clearly, what is excluded when the GNI* calculation is being made?

Public Accounts Committee: Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2016
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (19 Apr 2018)

David Cullinane: Before that, I wish to be clear about what the witness is saying. The difference between GDP and GNI is that it is not necessarily the profits generated by the multinational companies on the basis of goods and services but the profits that they make not being repatriated to Ireland but being repatriated somewhere else.