Overall budget package of €6.4bn will include €5.25bn in extra expenditure
Make Government Amount Minister “modest To For The Finance Sasko Michael Adjustment Is Been Extra The Has Rule” Picture: Ie Set As To Mcgrath Lazarov/rollingnews Described Will Expenditure Provide The €1bn April In For Expenditure What A Out Core Which An Above
An overall budget package of €6.4bn will be announced on Tuesday afternoon that includes €5.25bn in extra expenditure and an additional tax package of €1.15bn.
Finance Minister Michael McGrath and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe will publish the Summer Economic Statement (SES), which sets out the broad parameters for the budget.
Discussions in relation to the SES went on over the course of five weeks with talks between the three party leaders going on into late Monday night.
The Government is to make what has been described as a “modest adjustment to the expenditure rule” which will provide an extra €1bn for core expenditure above the amount set out in April.
This is in the context of an economy with GDP output of nearly €600bn next year, which the Government has said “strikes a balance between providing resources to invest in public services and supporting living standards and, on the other, not adding to inflationary pressures”.
Additional capital expenditure will be provided for, funded from windfall receipts, but the full details of the budget will be worked on in the weeks and months ahead.
It is expected that a number of one-off measures and supports will also be included in Budget 2024.
The budget will provide for non-core expenditure including humanitarian supports for refugees from Ukraine.
Mr McGrath is projecting a surplus for 2024 equal to the windfall receipts from corporation tax, which will result in an underlying balanced budget after adjusting for windfall gains.
This approach is in line with what the Finance Minister has been saying in recent weeks in relation to how the budget surplus will be used. That includes:
- Establish and build-up a long-term savings fund
- Build-up a public investment fund buffer
- Reduce debt
- Targeted increases in capital investment
Mr McGrath is still working on how this will be introduced and will bring a memo to Government on this in the weeks ahead.