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THE DEPARTMENT OF Finance has released its ‘White Paper’ ahead of the upcoming Budget, which confirms the Government will have a surplus of €25 billion for this year.
The ‘White Paper’ is published every year ahead of the budget and provides estimates of Ireland’s receipts and expenditure for the coming year.
The figures presented for 2024 are projections based on current information and are subject to revision when end-year figures become available.
The Department also notes that all figures are on a “technical pre-Budget basis and do not include any new policy measures to be announced as part of the 2025 Estimates and Budgetary processes”.
As well as a forecasted surplus of €25 billion for this current year, the Department is also forecasting a surplus of close to €12 billion for 2025.
However, this year’s figure includes all of the €14 billion windfall fund from Apple’s unpaid tax.
The European Court of Justice recently ruled that Apple must pay €13 billion to Ireland in unpaid taxes, something the Irish government had argued against.
While the 2024 figure includes all of the Apple tax for accounting purposes, only €8 billion of the Apple escrow fund will be injected into the exchequer this year, while the remaining €6 billion will be accrued next year.
And though the Apple tax makes up a great portion of the surplus, a record high of €30 billion in corporation taxes to be received by the State this year – €5.5 billion more than expected.
Yesterday, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warned that it “would be dangerous” to “pump” corporate tax receipts into the economy.
The Council is the State’s budgetary watchdog and was established to offer an “honest and independent view of how the Government manages its budget”.
It noted that a massive surplus was to be expected due to a spike in corporation tax due to the Apple tax ruling.
However, the Council cautioned that these “receipts would be once-off in nature” and that the surplus will be “significantly smaller in 2025”.
“A large deficit would be likely if not for these and other exceptional corporation tax receipts being collected from a handful of foreign multinationals,” said the Council.
“Pumping these receipts into a strong economy would be dangerous,” it added.
The Council also called for improved transparency in the White Paper itself.
“We’ve long argued that it should show gross rather than net spending,” said the Council, “which is hugely unhelpful.”
It said that these “general government figures would give a wider picture”.
Last week, Finance Minister Jack Chambers acknowledged that Ireland’s “fiscal position remains heavily exposed to volatile ‘windfall’ corporate tax revenues paid by just a small number of highly profitable firms”.
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Another cover up incoming, either that or it’ll be dragged on so long there will never be a conclusion. Remember all the investigations into Fine gael donor Denis o Brien and Actavo/siteserv and the dealings and debt write offs he received from certain banks? Still ongoing about 5 years later!!
Evidence based? The poor girl was let down by incompetent staff. End of.
@Brian O’Connor:
I don’t think that it was the nursing staff who were to blame to be fair, didn’t one nurse repeatedly try to get her seen by a doctor?
@Costigan Family: i was myself waiting on several occasions in ED 16+ hours…. I am yet to see one busy nurse….try retail or hospitality…. Its the management thats fails miserably… Poor girl…. May she rest in heaven…
@Costigan Family: it is not the overworked doctors’ fault that the HSE is chronically underfunded. There are one thousand vacant consultant posts because of the crap conditions offered by the HSE.
We seem very likely to have a general election this year
I will vote for the party that pledges to fight the monster that is our state bureaucracy
From the department of “social protection” to the HSE these unfeeling blobs make life a misery for huge numbers of people most of whom are on low/modest incomes and in difficult circumstances
If the word “republic” is to have any meaning then the state should be on the side of citizens. Instead it seems to be constantly stonewalling or fighting its citizens in long expensive court cases.
Time for real meaningful change
@Gerry Kelly: We accept that the state is not competent enough to provide food for example (collectized farms never worked) or consumer good etc why oh why then do we think that public sector beauacrats can run a health care system. Long lines, scarcity, misallocation of resources, no accountability, service users being seen as a burden, or a nuisances-all of these things are a result of state beauacracy. The state can fund healthcare, ideally through social insurance, but I shouldn’t actually run the system. Healthcare can be delivered to a high quality without long waits e.g germany, Switzerland etc.
The people in the Midwest were promised a centre of excellence by the HSE when the a&e was closed in Ennis and Nenagh. Brendan Drumm, Mary Harney and every Minister and HSE CEO since have let the people down. Hang your heads in shame.
.. they just don’t care, not the first time or last time.. will happen again..
Do you want the truth or an enquiry?
Civil Servants do not appoint people to find truth.
I’m afraid to think what I would do if this was one of my family members.
@Paul Kavanagh: Could not agree more Paul. I cannot as a parent imagine begging, pleading for help for my child as she lay dying before my eyes.
If the ministry for health, the ceo of the hse and the ceo of the hospital involved had the slightest most minute shred of dignity they should have resigned the minute this appalling tragedy happened.
Like you said I would seriously consider taking matters into my own hands if this happened to my child.
The stardust case had a tribunal of inquiry in 1981 that was a cover up. In 2009 the government published a redacted re-edited report from Mr Paul Coffey however in 2017 after the retired Judge McCartan review he stated looking at the evidence both the Keane review and Coffey review were wrong.
I not surprised about the terms of reference because government refuses to own their fatal failures and deny natural truths and justice. Her family should walk away.
@Liam Foy: It was found in the enquiry that the two top doctors on the ward that night were more interested in broken bones and minor injuries than treating the most seriously ill, I do think that says it all! They should be demoted or struck off.
“There are insufficient doctors to care for the numbers and acuity of patients presenting in the timescale expected by the triage system, the hospital and the community”, the report stated. Blame management and the Minister for Health, not the overworked, burnt out, doctors.
I must say from my inter action with Medical Staff in a major Dublin hospital, the care has been fantastic.
have your say