{"id":625578,"date":"2026-08-07T15:39:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T15:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/625578\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T15:39:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T15:39:35","slug":"irish-fiscal-advisory-council-warns-of-sizeable-budgetary-overruns-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/625578\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warns of \u2018sizeable\u2019 budgetary overruns \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council<\/a> (Ifac) has warned Government spending continues to increase too rapidly and there will be \u201csizeable overruns\u201d again this year.<\/p>\n

The watchdog was responding to the latest exchequer data that indicated Government spending rose by 7.4 per cent to \u20ac64.9 billion in the first seven months of this year.<\/p>\n

The council said the headline figure blurred the rapid increase in current spending which was already up 7.8 per cent, against a forecast of 6.3 per cent at the time of the budget. <\/p>\n

\u201cSizeable overruns are likely,\u201d Ifac said. \u201cThese are most evident in health. At the end of July, current health spending was overrunning by \u20ac400 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rapid increase in spending has become a flashpoint for the Coalition amid a near doubling of public expenditure<\/a> since 2019.<\/p>\n

The Government is already forecasting overruns in departmental budgets of \u20ac700 million this year. But Ifac said these could stretch to \u20ac850 million and beyond.<\/p>\n

Much of the overrun stems from an overspend in health and comes amid suggestions the budgetary allocation for hospitals this year remains at the 2025 level despite the increased demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment is investing significant additional resources across our public services,\u201d Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe figures published in today\u2019s fiscal monitor underline the increased investment in services and infrastructure to support a growing population and economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cA focus on reform, efficiency and value for money is essential to ensure this expenditure is carefully managed, delivers tangible outcomes and represents value for money for the people of Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish unemployment rate rises to 5.1%Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Chambers is promising a major clampdown on spending, warning Government departments will face greater sanctions for breaching their spending allocations. He has also warned that ministers seeking extra money in the upcoming budget would have to find it within their existing allocations.<\/p>\n

His department\u2019s spending review, which sets out the fiscal baseline for the upcoming budget, indicates overall spending will be increased by \u20ac7 billion next year, comprising \u20ac5.9 billion in additional day-to-day spending and \u20ac1.1 billion in capital expenditure on infrastructure such as energy, water and transport.<\/p>\n

This will bring total expenditure to \u20ac125 billion in 2027.<\/p>\n

Overall, this represents a 5.9 per cent increase in spending in line with the Government\u2019s Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, published last year, which seeks to put a 6 per cent cap on annual spending increases out to 2030.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Multinationals paid additional \u20ac1bn in July as new 15% tax rate kicks inOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

While the Government is forecast to run a budgetary surplus of \u20ac9.2 billion this year, with bumper corporation tax revenues excluded there will be an underlying deficit of \u20ac10.8 billion.<\/p>\n

The latest exchequer numbers point to an exchequer deficit of \u20ac600 million for July. This compares to a surplus of \u20ac4.1 billion last year. <\/p>\n

However, the department noted the year-on-year comparison was impacted by increased revenue last year arising from the Apple tax case. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) has warned Government spending continues to increase too rapidly and there will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[311,79,8452,18,19,17,38623,26736],"class_list":["post-625578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-corporation-tax","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-fiscal-advisory-council","tag-jack-chambers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117054981047061198","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}