Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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12. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide the updated figures he is using for budget 2015, regarding changes since the April SPU, to include, projected general Government deficit for 2014, SPU at €8 billion, carry forward into 2015 from previous budgetary measures, net or gross changes to the 2015 general Government deficit if there were no changes brought in by budget 2015, that is SPU has approximately €1.5 billion net and the constituent parts of these changes, that is savings due to early IMF loan repayments, revenue take revised upwards, social welfare payments revised downwards and so on. [37068/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Stability Programme Update published in April forecast a deficit of 4.8% of GDP for this year and 2.9% for 2015 underpinned by a consolidation package of €2.0bn.  However, the Deputy should be aware that there have been a number of important changes since April, most notably the performance of taxes and impact of the ESA2010 statistical changes introduced by Europe. 

In relation to taxes, cumulative tax revenue was up some €971m or 4.1% on profile by the end of August. This coupled with continued expenditure restraint means that we will overperform the 4.8% of GDP forecast by a comfortable margin.  The next official forecast of the 2014 deficit will be contained in the White Paper on Receipts and Expenditures which will be published on midnight, Friday 10 October.  This will also incorporate the no-policy change scenario for 2015 as sought by the Deputy.

A considerable part of the overperformance of taxes in 2014 will have a positive base effect going into 2015. Furthermore, the introduction of the ESA 2010 European statistical standards has led to the upward revision to the level of GDP in Ireland going back over a number of years. These were first presented by the CSO in July 2014 and Budget 2015 will be the first publication to be based on the new standard.

Overall GDP in 2013 was revised up by €10.7bn or 6.5 per cent by the CSO, from €164.1bn to €174.8bn. The bulk of the upward revisions (€7.0bn) relates the inclusion of research and development (R&D) as capital formation. However, other revisions mainly relating to revised estimates of exports and the inclusion of illicit activity have added about €3.7 bn. These revisions have had a small positive impact on the growth rates in previous years.

In terms of carry forward to be contained in the forthcoming Budget, it is presently estimated that there will be a very limited negative revenue carryover into 2015 as a result of Budget 2014 measures. It should also be noted that the pension levy of 0.6% is not included in the budgetary arithmetic for 2015.

With regard to the proposed early repayment of IMF loans, the proposal is to make an early repayment of a portion of those loans and final agreement on this is subject to the necessary national approval procedures of EU Member States. Annual savings achieved on interest expenditure due to any early repayment will depend market conditions at the time of any such repayments, however the cash savings achieved over the maturity of the loans are expected to be in the region of €1.5 billion.