Ireland's national debt 'one of the highest in the world' on a per capita basis

Not exactly a quick solution and not all migration is beneficial

You still have to service that debt. Taking more off ordinary folk to do this all the time is wrong especially when theres extraordinarily lot of waste

So you think we should enter a campaign of austerity for how long, a decade do you?

We shouldn't have borrowed for the pandemic and just obliterated the economy?

So best to do what we have been doing, borrow at low or negative interest rates and fix them long term and then be prudent in the refinancing. No one is suggesting we borrow huge amounts at very high interest rates.

But your assertion that higher debt automatically means higher servicing is simply false, as I just demonstrated to you.

Yes there is costs in things but there is value.

Pascal himself outlined this in the article.

The Dáil this evening heard that the wage subsidy schemes during the pandemic cost the State over €10 billion.

The Minister for Finance said that the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme and Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme cost €10.26 billion and protected the jobs of 690,000 people.

The thinking and economics around debt has changed, borrowing is no longer a filthy word, but a perfectly valid mechanism to grow the welfare and prosperity of ones country if done correctly.

Austerity doesn't work, that's why the thinking has changed, it needed to.

If people think that is a route we need to follow, there must be very short memories out there.

We are spending billions in capital investment, if it makes one feel better just pretend that is what the borrowing if for.

The problem is not prudent borrowing, it's gross waste.

In reality it will probably make the children's hospital look cheap.

If we can someway stop the dangerously simple from making the same costly repeated mistakes we may have some sort of chance.

Could take a while though.

Our debt servicing costs currently stand at 4.6% of budget expenditure and will get far worse as interest rates climb. Fixed costs for past borrowings are not relevant to future borrowing costs.

No, if net govt revenue grows faster than interest rates that figure declines.

Also its dependent on when debts mature and need refinanced, so in reality it will only get bigger and bigger.

More income means more expenditure. That figure declines and is projected to. It's not my opinion.

As for your second point, our domestic economy is projected to grow in the next 2 years by 10%. All growth figures are nearly always conservative. In 2030 our economy will be much bigger than it is now unless something more damaging than a once a generation global pandemic happens.

Ireland’s expenditure on pandemic-related supports was approximately four times’ the EU average as a percentage of national income.

However, as the economy continued to grow strongly over the past two years, debt as a percentage of GNI* rose by 12% compared to a euro area average of 15%.

The national debt, measured either as a percentage of national income or on a per capita basis, peaked in 2021 and is projected to fall from this year onwards.

Sure what is 10% of the budget on debt servicing anyways? Be grand

Could you show be where you garnered that figure?

I could but since its based on possible interest rate hikes that havent been definitively signalled yet, its not a definitive prediction either.

Ireland already has a big demographic shift ahead, and with a housing crisis limiting new population growth and FDI investment I'd be very sceptical of claims that our GNI will grow 10% in 2 years, or continue to grow at rates even half that. The minister for Finance himself recognises that Ireland indebtedness is not a good position, and that efforts need to be made to reduce not only debt to GNI* but also our debt per capita, 2nd highest in the EU and one of the highest in the world at that.

But I suppose you know more than the minister and department of finance

The 10% is based on existing payments, interest rate rises and our poor growth prospects in future. A big demographic shift towards an older population in the next decade and an inevitable higher interest rate environment mean debt servicing costs will be much higher than present. How could they not really, currently costs are held artificially low because of ECB stepping in with pandemic support. Effective interest rates on sovereign debt will never be this low ever again.

I love national debt. We should try and get it to about 500bn. It will be mighty, think of all the overpriced contractors we could give juicy government contracts to if we get it to 500bn

Then us silly normal people can pay about 20,000 every year to live in our own house, 5,000 a year for a bit of murky tap water, 2,000 tax for breathing air and about 3,000 for a tank of petrol. We'll have so much fun while we knuckle down like little subservient eejits and try to pay for all of it. The crowd we borrow from will be lying branded beach towels at resorts in Barbados for the rest of their days occasionally glancing at their tablet for news about how we're slaving away to pay all this debt for a good laugh.

Maybe they can sink 100bn of borrowed money into the HSE to install some clusterfuck of an IT system based on Windows NT 4.0 while people slump to their deaths sitting on chairs because they couldn't get a trolley on time !

Okay.

No idea what that has to do with the content of my post.

😕

I have a question. If Ireland had not borrowed 200 billion euro since 2009, would house prices be where they are or would they be so low that they would be easily affordable? Also, if we had not borrowed that 200 billion, would a different set of people own houses today, in other words, would the people who are currently living in their childhood bedroom while saving for a mortgage be the ones to be the property owners and landlords if the government had not interfered? And if so, who would be the tenants? Would it be the people who are presently landlords?

Who should pay the 200 billion that has been borrowed since 2009?