Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 29 May 2013
71. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance what Ireland’s GNI for the past five years would have been excluding redomiciled public limited companies; and the amount by which Ireland’s contribution to the EU budget would have been reduced if these redomiciled public limited companies were excluded from the GNI figures for these years. [25970/13]
View answerGross National Income (GNI) figures for Ireland are prepared by the CSO as part of the national accounts. These figures are published annually in the National Income and Expenditure accounts, with the latest available final figures to 2011. The re-domiciled public limited companies (PLCs) are resident in Ireland and must be incorporated into our National statistics. In accordance with the European and International Statistical Standards, the CSO is not required to produce a separate series which excludes the impact of these entities on GNI. However, to assist analysis of the macroeconomic accounts for Ireland, the ESRI recently published an estimate of the retained profits relating to these re-domiciled PLCs. From this, it can be estimated that by 2011 the impact represented about 4.5% of GNI. Taking account of this analysis and the significance of the GNI key in the calculation of Ireland’s overall contribution, indicative estimates for the 2009-2011 period would suggest that the impact of these redomiciled PLCs upon our budget contributions was to increase the amount paid in by Ireland. The following table sets out an estimate for the years 2009 – 2011 of what the annual impact might have been, if the effect arising from the redomiciled PLCs was excluded.
Estimated Annual Impact from Adjusted GNI
|
- |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
|
Estimated additional EU Budget contribution was of the order of … |
€15m |
€40m |
€45m |
The Deputy will be aware that the use of GNI as a contribution key favours Ireland, as unlike other countries this is significantly lower than our GDP. It accounts for about two thirds of our EU Budget contribution. It should be noted that in overall terms, under the current MFF 2007-2013, Ireland remains a net beneficiary from the EU Budget.
