By Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA
The ruling ordering Ireland to collect €13 billion in back taxes from Apple will not impact on the upcoming budget, two senior ministers have said.
Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe are due to unveil Budget 2025 three weeks from now on October 1st.
Mr Chambers said it would take months, not weeks, to draw down the funds from the escrow account as it analyses a ruling from the European Court of Justice and considers “adjustments” from other countries.
Mr Chambers: “I need to be clear, however, that this will not impact on the parameters already set out for Budget 2025.
“The summer economic statement published by government in July has set out the available package for the budget and Minister Donohoe and I will deliver Budget 2025, on October 1st, in line with those parameters.”
The summer economic statement set out a budgetary package of €8.3 billion, comprising a spending package of €6.9 billion and a tax package worth €1.4 billion.
“Budget 2025 will see a total of €105.4 billion in expenditure being made available for next year. The size of that budget will not be changing,” Mr Donohoe said on Tuesday.
He said plans for next year’s budget were “already well advanced” and he said he and others want to assess the possible risks before deciding how the money should be used.
Mr Donohoe added: “If you had come to me yesterday and offered that money for use in the budget, I would remind you about what the Central Bank and what the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council said about the size of our budget for next year.
“They have been warning us that to have a budget any bigger could create risks in how we fund spending in the future, which could create problems for taxpayers in the future too.
“They have also pointed out that to have a bigger budget runs the risk of not having workers in our economy to turn higher capital spend into actual projects being built, and that we run the risk of putting so much money into our economy that just when we’ve been successful in getting inflation down across Europe, we run the risk of creating it here at home. And they’re all important and real risks for next year.
“That is why I believe the budget that we have at the moment and plans that we have for next year is still the right ones and should not change because of this.
“When you bring in a budget, you bring in the budget assuming that this is spending that you’re going to continue in the future, whereas what we have now is the potential at the point next year for a one-off receipt of additional money, and that should not change what our plans are going to be for money that we plan to keep on spending year by year by year.”
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