Jim Power

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.

And it makes the deficit worse than it really is.

However, from a general government perspective, it's neutral.

It has no effect.

So as a consequence of that, the general government surplus, well, that and other things, the general government surplus is very strong.

So where I'm going with this, if I've not lost you all already, is the fact that-

Yeah, it's the fact that when people see the headlines about this massive surplus on the general government balance, they immediately say, you know, what's the government complaining about?

You know, there's plenty of money to address all of these problems.

And indeed, that's a narrative I heard being thrown out there during the fuel protests about a month ago at this stage.

And the reality is, and as a consequence of that, of course, going into the budget now, there's a lot of,

organizations and lobby groups that set out their feeling that yeah this is going to be a great budget we're going to get a load out of it why not there are massive surpluses being run but i would throw a lot of cold water on that suggestion because from the government's perspective i think the exchequer balance is more important because that tells us the taxation that's being collected

And at the moment, that taxation picture is strong.

Even if you strip out the so-called Apple taxes impact over the last couple of years, income tax is still growing strongly, reflecting the strong labor market VAT, which is...

Basically, a consumer spending tax in the main, it's growing quite strongly.