Gavan Reilly: How much can you really do with €7.7 billion? |
Politics by Numbers is a new series for The Journal where broadcaster, author and spreadsheet stan Gavan Reilly takes a data deep dive into a political point of the week.
OK, YES, the Budget is still months away. Eighty-nine days, in fact, if you’re desperate for a rolling countdown. But the Budget is no longer a one-day event; it’s a rolling cascade of governance and paradigms and exchequer returns and fiscal envelopes and seasonal statements and and and and.
This makes for tedious media coverage but governance-wise it’s a good thing. It’s only 23 years since the Budget Day announcements were so last gasp and short notice that they included a surprise plan to move entire Government departments out of Dublin, relocating 10,000 civil service jobs with them. Arguable in principle; almost impossible in practice.
These days, the sums aren’t done on the spot, and imaginary billions are not suddenly found down the back of a couch on Merrion Street.
These days, the sums aren’t done on the spot, and imaginary billions are not suddenly found down the back of a couch on Merrion Street.
The amount available for new measures is almost pre-ordained years in advance. We know already, for example, that Ireland intends to spend €147.3 billion in the year 2030 – it was on page 6 of the Annual Performance Review published in April.
The same document told us that (“voted”) spending in 2027 will be €7.7 billion higher than it is this year. On the face of it that sounds like a huge amount: imagine what you could buy for €7.7 billion! Imagine the services you could create, the investment you could make, the increases you could afford… as a raw total, it’s an impressive figure.
But the Business Post did us all some service at the weekend, with details of an unpublished........