Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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51. To ask the Minister for Finance the extent to which the various economic and fiscal targets set by his Department in conjunction with the troika have been met in each of the past five years to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28911/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Our EU/IMF Programme ran from late 2010 to December 2013. The European Council Recommendation of 7th December 2010, set out an adjustment path towards the correction of our excessive deficit out to 2015.

These deficit targets were incorporated into the programme. For the programme years these were 10.6% in 2011, 8.6% in 2012 and 7.5% in 2013. The outcome was 8.9% in 2011 (underlying), 8.2% in 2012 and 7.2% in 2013, showing a clear over-achievement of the targets each year.

The 2014 target for the general government deficit is 5.1% of GDP. The latest forecast from my Department, published in the Stability Programme Update, is for a deficit of 4.8% of GDP this year and a deficit of less than 3% of GDP in 2015.

The programme also included quarterly targets for the Exchequer primary balance and the Central Government Net Debt. The definition of these targets and the method of calculation was set out in the IMF Technical Memorandum of Understanding (TMU) attached to Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies.

The Exchequer primary balance is the Exchequer balance excluding Exchequer debt interest expenditure and adjusted for any payments for bank recapitalisation and credit union funding, and any over/under-performance in Exchequer tax revenues and gross PRSI receipts combined compared to the TMU estimates.

Central Government Net Debt was defined as the total outstanding amount of principal borrowed central government and not repaid to date, less liquid assets available for redemption of the liabilities at the same.

These targets were in place for 12 consecutive quarters up to end September 2013. Targets for all 12 quarters were met and Ireland successfully exited the EU/IMF Programme in December 2013.