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.
(as a % of GDP at current market prices)
|
2016 (as at Budget 2017)
|
2016 (as at March 2017)
|
Percentage Point Change
|
General Government Gross Debt
|
76.0
|
75.1
|
0.9
|
General Government Net Debt
|
66.0
|
65.4
|
0.7
|
General Government Deficit
|
0.9
|
0.9
|
0.01
|