Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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202. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide, using the most up-to-date economic and fiscal information available, an estimate of the final deficit as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, for 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13341/17]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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204. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide, using the most up-to-date economic and fiscal information available, an estimate of the debt to Gross Domestic Product, GDP, ratio at the end of 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13343/17]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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216. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide a revised estimate of Ireland's gross and net debt to Gross Domestic Product, GDP, ratio, in view of the publication by the Central Statistics Office of Quarterly National Accounts Quarter 4 2016 and Year 2016 (Preliminary) on 9 March 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13483/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 202, 204 and 216 together.

As the Deputy will be aware, estimates of gross debt, net debt and the deficit were published by my Department in the documentation accompanying the 2017 Budget last October. Updated figures are being prepared by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), in cooperation with my Department. This will be transmitted to Eurostat in the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) notification tables (also known as the Maastricht Returns) at the end of March. Following a clarification process by Eurostat this data will be made public just after mid-April. At the same time my Department is also preparing for Stability Programme Update (SPU) 2017. This will take full account of any updated assumptions including figures published by the CSO as part of the government finance statistics release.

However, while updates of the nominal amount have to await the completion of the process described above, the below figures show the impact of the higher 2016 GDP figure in the CSO's recent release on the general government gross and net debt, as well as the general government deficit figure for 2016. However, the Deputy should be aware that the GDP data for 2016 will be subject to revision as part of the CSO's compilation of the National Income and Expenditure data in June this year.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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203. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide, using the most up-to-date economic and fiscal information available, an estimate of the fiscal space for 2018, 2019 and 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13342/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Estimates of the gross and net fiscal space for the period 2018 to 2020 can be found in Table A7 Annex 2 of the Budget 2017 book.  For convenience, the gross and net fiscal space for the period 2018 to 2020 are set out below.

The calculation of the fiscal space depends on a number of moving parts. These include figures for general government expenditure, general government gross fixed capital formation, GDP deflators, reference rates and convergence margins.

The first official estimates of general government expenditure and gross fixed capital formation for 2016 are currently being compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), in cooperation with my Department. These will be transmitted to Eurostat in the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) notification tables (also known as the Maastricht Returns) at the end of March. Following a clarification process by Eurostat these data will be made public around mid-April. These data may be subject to revision when the CSO compiles the annual national accounts in June, and an updated EDP transmission takes place at end-September.

As Ireland is not yet at its medium term budgetary objective of a structural deficit of 0.5 per cent of GDP, the fiscal space is calculated in line with the potential growth rate of GDP less a convergence margin. The European Commission will set out the GDP deflator and the reference rate of potential growth in its Spring forecast due to be published in May.  The Commission's Spring forecast will also contain the information necessary to calculate the convergence margin.

Following the publication of these data, my Department will compile revised projections of fiscal space out to 2021 and publish these in the Summer Economic Statement in June of this year.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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205. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide, using the most up-to-date economic and fiscal information available, an estimate of Ireland's contribution to the EU budget in respect of 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13344/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The most recent published figures on the EU Budget relate to the financial year 2015 and are available in the Budget Statistics bulletin on the Department of Finance's website. According to the bulletin in 2015 Ireland contributed c. €1,952 million to the EU budget while receiving €1,770m in public sector receipts (€1,919m when including direct management receipts). 

In 2016, Ireland contributed c. €2,023 million to the EU budget. In relation to receipts for 2016, we will only have a final outturn in the middle of 2017 when all the relevant data is published.