Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party)
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173. To ask the Minister for Finance the reason table 10 in the stability programme update of April 2015 does not include a line showing the underlying general government primary balance, as has been provided in previous years; and if he will provide that information. [17885/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The recommendation of the Council of the European Union dated 7^thof December 2010 provided a ceiling for the general government deficit for the years 2011 to 2015. This ceiling excluded any potential bank support measures that may be required in the context of the Government's financial sector strategy. As such, fiscal projections produced by my Department contained a forecast of the underlying general government (which excluded any support to the financial sector) to allow a comparison to be made between the ceiling allowed by the Council's recommendation and the forecast deficit.

The forecast for the underlying general government deficit is still published in Table A1 of the Supplementary Data in the SPU.  However, as the Deputy will be aware, Ireland is on course to reduce the general government deficit to below 3% of GDP in 2015 and exit the excessive deficit procedure thereafter. Once out of the excessive deficit procedure, the underlying deficit is no longer relevant.  In any event, the difference between the headline and underlying deficit is now relatively small (c. €120 million related to the credit union sector in 2015) and is expected to reduce to zero by 2017.

Separately, the achievement of a primary surplus is an important metric is terms of debt sustainability in the medium to long term.  A primary surplus means that, excluding debt service costs, revenues are sufficient to meet expenditures. 

The underlying general government primary balance is calculated by deducting interest expenditure from the underlying general government balance. Tables consistent with the SPU are set out in the table.

Underlying general government primary balance