Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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238. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide the latest available estimate for the non-budgetary adjustment to the 2014 deficit to be considered in budget 2015. [13525/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Budget 2014 outlined a total adjustment package of €3.1bn. This comprised €2.5bn in expenditure cuts and tax increases complemented with additional resources / other savings of €0.6bn.

These additional resources / other savings are made up of a number of items. Firstly, the NTMA Budget debt service estimate for 2014 is lower than the corresponding April SPU estimate, of the order €0.2bn, due to an improvement in the interest rate environment generally and lower than previously planned bond issuance. In summer 2013, the Central Bank provided an estimate of the 2013 surplus income to be paid to the Central Fund in 2014 based on results to that date and projections for the remainder of the year.  The Central Bank revised this estimate upwards by €0.1bn in September, in light of actual results for the first nine months and the consequent revisions of projections for the remaining three months of 2013.  In terms of savings from the Live Register, the numbers in work rose by 33,800 in the year to the second quarter of 2013 and the Live Register at the end of quarter 3 2013 was down by just over 20,000 when compared to the same period in 2012. On foot of the recovering labour market, live register savings had exceeded those previously expected of the order of €0.15bn.  Finally, the remaining €0.15bn arises from a number of other factors mainly connected with State asset transactions.

With Exchequer data available for only two months of the year, it is too early for a meaningful comparison against outturn for any estimates made as part of the Budget 2014 fiscal forecast. The estimates for additional resources / other savings in 2014 will be reviewed, closer to budget time, as part of the formulation of an overall Budget 2015 package of measures.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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239. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide an estimate of the earliest date that the full no policy change budget for budget 2015 will be seen. [13526/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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In advance of each Budget, the White Paper on Receipts and Expenditure is published, in accordance with the provisions of Article 28 of the Constitution. As the Deputy will be aware, the White Paper contains the fiscal forecast for the forthcoming year based on a position of no policy change.

This forecast is based on the same macroeconomic and fiscal policy data as the forecast contained in the budget booklet. This allows for the fiscal forecasts to be directly compared, showing the impact of budgetary measures. For Budget 2014, this data is contained in Table 7 on page C.14 of the budget booklet.

In order to ensure that the fiscal forecast contained in the White Paper is still relevant at the time the Budget is announced, it is necessary to wait until close to Budget day before it is finalised. For this reason, any forecast based on no policy change will not be available until the days prior to the announcement of budgetary measures.

The Deputy should note, however, that budgetary forecasts for the next four years will be set out in the update of the Stability Programme which must be submitted to the European Commission by the end of April. Policy assumptions underpinning the forecasts will be set out in the document.