Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 May 2013
103. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance if he will provide further detail on a note to the stability programme update (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23504/13]
View answerIn order to improve analysis of the fiscal statistics provided by my Department and in the spirit of transparency, the Stability Programme Update includes, in table A1.3, a comparison of the receipts and expenditures in the current table with the most recent table produced at Budget time. In table A1.3, note 4 refers to the reclassification of an item from 'other expenditure, to 'social payments'.
Before 2012, voluntary secondary schools were classified outside the general government sector. In September 2012 the CSO agreed with Eurostat to reclassify the non-fee paying voluntary secondary schools from non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH, S.15) to general government (S.13) with retrospective effect.
Although, this reclassification has little effect on the general government balance, the payment to non-fee paying voluntary secondary schools which was previously classified as a transfer payment (from the 'other' category) is now classified as compensation of employees and intermediate consumption.
Initially the switch between categories was made from the 'social payments' category. It was subsequently deemed more appropriate to switch from the 'other' category. It is the transposition between these two categories that the note 4 of table A1.3 refers.
The reduction in the 'other' expenditure category is offset by increased expenditure under ELG and derivative guarantees.
It is important to state that this the action simply transposes an item from one type of transfer payment to another type of transfer payment. It has no effect on the balance. Nor does it affect the future or historic time series aligned to the new Government Finance Statistics tables produced by the CSO, as the effect is true for the whole time series.
