What is the likely hood of 8.5 billion in adjustments getting us anywhere near the Deficit target set out? Even forgetting about the growth in off balance sheet activity.
You say there has been 25 billion in adjustments but it hasn’t resulted in a 35 billion turnaround in our fiscal deficit nor anything like it. So what is the probability of 8 billion in adjustments getting us back to a 3% deficit?

Its somewhere between 0 and 0.5% but the politicians are talking about it like its a likely scenario.

I believe child support payments to “lone parent families” should be made compulsory by the father and mother.

If I father a child or children with different women.. why should the taxpayer pay for the children’s up keep?

The Children are mine, they are my responsibility, not the taxpayers.

But of course, in the land of Zero Accountability, it’s always somebody who pays, sure after all…. has’nt the taxpayer got deep pockets?

There is lots of detail here.

It is not correct to say that €x billion of adjustment should reduce the deficit by €x billion. There are lots of revenue and expenditure items in the budget that change automatically. An economy is not static.

For example, in 2007 providing the Contributory State Pension cost €2,755 million. This year it is estimated that the cost will be €3,760 million and this is mostly the result of an increase in the number of people aged over 65. The record numbers of births recorded in the past few years will be doing the same to child-related payments. There is also the effect of things such an increments to public sector workers which are not included in the ‘adjustment’ total because they happen automatically and are not subject of a specific budgetary measure.

And, of course, there is interest expenditure doing the same to an even greater extent. In 2007, general government interest was around €1.8 billion. This year it will be €6.3 billion.

July 2008: €1 billion
October 2008: €1.5 billion
February 2009 €3.1 billion
April 2009: €5.4 billion
November 2009: €0.8 billion
December 2009: €4.3 billion
December 2010: €5.4 billion
December 2011: €3.8 billion
TOTAL: €25.3 billion

December 2012: €3.5 billion
December 2013: €3.1 billion
December 2014: €2.0 billion
TOTAL: €8.6 billion

Where is the inconsistency between these?

But this two-year example is not realistic as there is not useful as there no specific end-date for most budgetary measures . It is not as if all the measures introduced from 2008 to 2015 are going to be reversed in 2016.

If you are going to give me a thousand euro a year, and I don’t know how long for, the best I cans say is that I am gaining a thousand euro a year. If you were doing so and stop giving it, the best I can say is that I am losing a thousand euro a year.

I’m with NWL on this one, it makes sense to aggregate the impact of budget measures (over a cycle or specific programme).