Budgetary Summary

2009 Budget Outturn

The 2009 Exchequer Deficit is forecast to be 24,641 million euro or -15.0 per cent of GDP compared with the 2009 Budget day deficit target of 13,412 million euro. This outturn includes the 1 per cent of GNP allocated to the partial pre-funding of future social welfare and public service pension costs, it also includes the frontloading of the 2010 allocation (which is 3 billion euro in total). The General Government Balance (GGB ), as defined for Maastricht purposes, is estimated to show a deficit of 11.7 per cent of GDP compared with the original Budget target of a 6.5 per cent deficit.

2010 Budget targets

The 2010 Budget targets which were released in December 2009 are:

Current Budget Deficit of 13,718 million euro or -8.5 per cent of GDP;
Exchequer Deficit of 18,780 million euro or -11.7 per cent of GDP; and
General Government Balance of -11.6 per cent of GDP.

The ratio of General Government Debt to GDP is forecast to increase to 77.9 per cent at end 2010.