Jim Power

How do you read that?

Here in Ireland, the productivity numbers are pretty impressive, but it's obviously very skewed.

The multinational sector, very strong.

The indigenous economy, much less strong.

But nevertheless, it has fed into pretty dramatic improvements, really, in the standard of living in this country over the last couple of decades.

And in that context, Chris, I wanted to talk a little bit about the budget that's coming up on October 6th in this country.

And it's something we are going to be talking a lot more about as time evolves.

Yeah, well, it is interesting, Chris, does the spring economic statement that was published there in April, it was looking at the exchequer balance.

OK, the exchequer balance is basically I'm going to get a little bit geeky here now, but the exchequer balance is basically the difference between what the government collects in taxation and a few other revenues, but mainly taxation and what it spends on the day to day running the country.

And

capital investment stuff.

And that exchequer balance is forecast to come in

at a deficit of 1.2 billion this year, 3.4 next year, and 7.7 billion the following year.

Okay, but the general government balance, on the other hand, is forecast to come in at a surplus of 9.2 billion this year, 9 billion in 2027, and 6.7 billion in 2028.

So the difference between the Exchequer central government and general government is include stuff like...

the non-commercial semi-state companies.

It includes stuff like, for example, the money that the government is putting into the two funds that have been set up, the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund.

The money that's put into the

those funds comes out of the exchequer balance.

Okay.