{"id":360571,"date":"2026-04-02T17:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360571\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:05:10","slug":"sequence-of-budget-surpluses-reduces-national-debt-to-pre-pandemic-levels-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360571\/","title":{"rendered":"Sequence of budget surpluses reduces national debt to pre-pandemic levels \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sequence of large budgetary surpluses has reduced Ireland\u2019s national debt to pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

Central Statistics Office (CSO)<\/a> figures show gross debt fell by \u20ac5.7 billion to \u20ac209.9 billion last year, which equated to 62 per cent of national income as measured by the CSO\u2019s bespoke measure gross national income (GNI*). <\/p>\n

The reduction comes on foot of general government surpluses of \u20ac7.4 billion, \u20ac23.3 billion and \u20ac11.6 billion in 2023, 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

Before the pandemic, in 2019, the State\u2019s debt was \u20ac203 billion.<\/p>\n

However, the outlay on Covid<\/a> saw it balloon to \u20ac235 billion by 2021, which was more than 100 per cent of national income.<\/p>\n

Before the financial crisis in 2007, gross national debt was just \u20ac47 billion.<\/p>\n

\"\"Iran\u2019s cyber-attacks on Irish-based companies and the ongoing impact of conflict in the Middle East<\/p>\n

The CSO\u2019s figures, which are provisional, indicate the Government recorded a general government surplus of \u20ac11.6 billion last year.<\/p>\n

This represented a reduction of \u20ac11.7 billion on the 2024 surplus.<\/p>\n

However the latter was inflated by what the CSO described as a one-off capital transfer revenue of \u20ac14.2 billion arising from the Apple tax ruling. <\/p>\n

The general government surplus is different from the budget surplus (excess tax receipts over spending) as it encompasses all government arms and local authorities.<\/p>\n

The surplus outlined in the CSO\u2019s report is roughly in line with what the Government signalled at the time of the budget in October.<\/p>\n

Strong income tax receipts linked to having a record 2.83 million people at work has boosted the Government\u2019s finances so far this year<\/p>\n

Exchequer returns for January and February combined show income tax receipts totalled almost \u20ac6 billion, which was \u20ac305 million (5.4 per cent) in advance of last year\u2019s total at this stage.<\/p>\n

The positive income tax trend reflects the current buoyancy of the labour market.<\/p>\n

Exchequer data for March will be published next week. The figures will reflect the initial impact of the US-led war on Iran. <\/p>\n

The hike in prices is expected to boost Government VAT receipts.<\/p>\n

Minister for Finance Simon Harris warned this week that the current energy crisis was bigger than the previous oil crises in 1973 and 1976 and the gas crisis of 2022 \u201ccombined and is ongoing and worsening by the day\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Government cut excise duties on petrol and diesel last week by 15 and 20 cents respectively in a bid to shield motorists. <\/p>\n

But the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) criticised the measures as untargeted, suggesting most of the benefit would flow to well-off households.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sequence of large budgetary surpluses has reduced Ireland\u2019s national debt to pre-pandemic levels. Central Statistics Office (CSO)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-360571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}