Debt and Deficits Decomposed

A new dataset from Eurostat has received a lot of attention recently as it highlights the deficit costs of the bailout of our banking system that began with the blanket guarantee of September 2008.  On the other side of the same coin the data allows us to determine the non-banking crisis element of our recent deficits.

The following table shows the €105 billion of general government deficits that were accumulated between 2008 and 2011.  According to the Eurostat data €41 billion of these was due to measures introduced to deal with the banking collapse.  The final section of the table gives the ‘underlying’ deficit which is simply calculated as the difference between the total and banking-related figures in the sections above it.

Between 2008 and 2011 the ‘underlying’ deficits totalled €64 billion and this is a running total as the deficits continue to accumulate. 

At the end of 2007, the gross general government debt was just over €47 billion.  2007 was the last year when the general government accounts were close to balance and a small surplus of €143 million was recorded.

Since the end of 2007, the debt has ballooned and by the end of 2012 it is estimated to be around €190 billion.  The increase can be broken down as follows:

The figure for the 2012 general government deficit will be finalised later in the year and is likely to come around €13 billion.  With guarantee fees, interest on contingent capital notes, dividends on preference shares it is also likely that the revenues from the banking measures will exceed the expenditures. 

The surplus income paid to the Exchequer from the Central Bank has increased significantly in recent years (2008: €290 million; 2012: €958 million).  The increase is mainly as a result of profits made by the Central Bank on the Exceptional Liquidity Assistance it is provided to Anglo/INBS.  This is not included in the ‘banking’ revenues measured by Eurostat.

The stock/flow adjustment is mainly the increase in cash balances held by the NTMA from €4.4 billion at the end of 2007 to €24.0 billion at the end of 2012.

Just over one-fifth of the 2012 debt is due to the banks though the full cost of the bank bailout is larger when non-deficit increasing expenditures are included.  This includes the value of the some of the funds depleted from the National Pension Reserve Fund to buy ordinary and preference shares in AIB and BOI. It also includes the expenditure by the Exchequer on shares in PTSB and Irish Life and the contingent capital notes remaining in AIB and PTSB.  

Nearly two-thirds of the debt has been accumulated because of deficit spending by the government sector.

The 2007 debt accounts for 25% of the current total and that was the legacy of the last incident of national insolvency in the 1980s. The debt that resulted from the accumulated deficits of the time were simply rolled over and never repaid.  Growth and inflation meant the debt burden fell from 120% of GDP in the late 80s to 25% of GDP by 2007. 

The ongoing deficits since 2008 have contributed around 40% of the current debt mountain but the nature of them is changing as we move closer to a primary budget balance.