Current expenditure increased by 16.4% in 2001 and by 20.6% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2001. These increases in public expenditure contributed to overall economic activity and therefore to tax revenues. This is because, for example, additional public expenditure can lead to increased numbers of public service workers and the additional amounts of income tax or indirect tax collected as a result would accrue to the Exchequer. Tax receipts in 2001 were 3.2% above the 2000 outturn and tax receipts in the first quarter of 2002 were 2.8% lower than in the same period in 2001. These figures include the positive impact of additional public expenditure on tax revenues in those periods.
However, revenue yield is a function inter alia of developments across the economy as a whole. Any assessment of revenue performance, therefore, requires to be made by reference to the broad sweep of economic developments. It is not possible to meaningfully disaggregate the impact of additional public expenditure on tax revenues from all the other factors, domestic and external, which have been contributing to ongoing economic and revenue performance. Accordingly, I have not initiated any specific study or research of the particular nature referred to by the Deputy. My Department monitors economic and revenue trends, and the methodology used to forecast them, on an ongoing basis in the context of the broad range of domestic and international economic developments.