asked the Minister for Finance the total State indebtedness in each of the years 1982, 1983 and 1984 and the estimated figure for 1985.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - State Debt.
6.
I take it that the total State indebtedness to which the Deputy is referring is Exchequer debt. The figure for Exchequer debt at the end of each of the years mentioned is as follows:
|
National Debt (i.e. Exchequer Debt) |
|
|
£ million |
|
|
1982 |
12,817 |
|
1983 |
15,770 |
|
1984 |
18,492 |
I asked also for the estimated figure for 1985.
An estimated figure for 1985 will not be available until the end of the year when borrowing operations are complete. However, the figure for end-September 1985 is estimated at £20,040 million.
In view of the huge increase in total State indebtedness — from £12.5 billion to almost £21 billion at the end of this year, an increase of more than 60 per cent — and in view of the concern being expressed by, among others, the Governor of the Central Bank who said that this trend was profoundly unsatisfactory and that we could not continue to banquet on borrowing as has been the case in recent times, can the Minister give the House any assurance that in relation to this huge growth in borrowing, both domestic and external, which is represented now by something of the order of 140 per cent of GNP, he and the Government will change their policies? Does he agree that steps must be taken to ensure that we do not continue to have a growth of that order and of which between £7 billion and £8 billion has been incurred since this Government came to office?
I appreciate the Deputy's concern. It is a concern he has voiced here on a number of occasions. I assure him that he will find me extremely forthcoming, as I have been up to now, during the course of next year in the promotion of policies that will restrain the growth in borrowing. Having heard the Deputy express his concern again today I am confident now that he will be supporting me in those policies.
On the basis of performance so far, those assurances can only be very disturbing.
We cannot have argument.
The Minister is giving an assurance, but the facts point in the other direction.
This is argument. The Deputy is proposing to make a speech.
And he is being inconsistent with what I said.
We are adding to the national debt at the rate of £2 billion per year and even if we were to adhere to the targets outlined in Building on Reality, targets which have long since gone by the board——
The Deputy must agree that this is argument.
In those circumstances, will the Minister try to ensure that he will be more effective in future in terms of reducing the level of the total debt, the servicing of which accounts for more than the entire deficit on current account? Will he try to ensure also that the abysmal record of the Government, the worst of all Governments since the foundation of the State, will be corrected and changed so that we do not have a continuation of this banquet on borrowing to which the Governor of the Central Bank pointed very deliberately in a recent speech?
The Deputy is factually wrong in a number of those assertions. So far as his distaste for banqueting is concerned, I can only repeat what I said earlier, that is, that I will be pursuing and promoting here policies designed to curb the level of borrowing. I trust that I can rely on the support of Deputy O'Kennedy which, if I am to take him at his word, should be forthcoming even if in the 1986 and 1987 budgets I will be proposing an Exchequer borrowing requirement of less than £2 billion. However, I will believe I have that support only when I have got it from the Deputy.
The Minister said I was factually wrong in some of the figures.
I am not prepared to allow argument or long speeches at Question Time.
Can the Minister indicate which of the figures I quoted was factually wrong——
The Deputy should table a question.
The Minister is too glib.
The Minister knows that the figures I quoted were factual as his silence acknowledges. Since the level of this debt represents well over £20,000 per annum for every worker in the State, will the Minister not acknowledge that the huge growth in the total debt, both domestic and external, since he came to office has been of such an unprecedented and unsustainable level that the burden on this generation and on the next will increase to a totally unsustainable level unless the Minister changes his policy dramatically?
That does not arise on the question.
Again, the Deputy is wrong factually. It is wrong to speak of the debt as being, as he claims, £20,000 per worker per annum. The debt is a given amount at a given point; it is not a per annum figure. However, I assure the Deputy with all the sincerity at my disposal — and on matters like this that is very considerable — of my attachment to policies that will curb the total level of borrowing, the total annual level of borrowing and the total size of the debt. Despite experience to the contrary, I trust that when we are discussing the 1986 budget and the Finance Bill, Deputy O'Kennedy will follow the line he is propounding here today.
The Minister's budgets so far have brought us to this position.
The figures are the Minister's.
Will the Minister's colleagues in Government support him?
I am calling the next question.