Exchequer figures to signal budget deficit heading to €30bn this year
Exchequer figures published this afternoon are set to show the mounting toll the State faces from the Covid-19 economic storm and will point to the Government budget deficit soaring to €30bn this year.
For the first time, the tax and spend figures will reveal the huge sums spent in the first full month of the Covid-19 lockdown, as the numbers in receipt of some form of pandemic payment, wage support, or for people who lost their job during the early weeks of the crisis, raced towards the 1.1 million mark.
An analysis by the shows the latest returns will likely reveal that the exchequer deficit of over €3.1bn in April last year will likely have ballooned to as much as €6bn.
The April figures out later today will put the focus on the additional costs of the pandemic unemployment and wage-support payments -- which could have reached €1.7bn in April-- as well as the additional healthcare costs of potentially €300m.
The exchequer figures already published for March showed the huge hit suffered to the exchequer’s tax revenues in just the first two weeks of the lockdown.
The impact will not be as dramatic but nonetheless the exchequer will likely see a further hit of €1bn in April to its tax revenues, which will help push the total deficit for the exchequer towards €6bn in the month.
Separately, figures published last night by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection showed 27% of the labour force in the South-West region were in receipt of some sort of crisis pandemic payment.
There were 83,100 in the South-West, accounting for 24% of the labour force in the region, in receipt of a pandemic payment, and a further 44,900 people, or a further 13% of the labour force in the region, in receipt of the wage-support scheme.
The Government will be looking at its roadmap to get large parts of the workforce, starting with 148,000 construction workers, back to work in the coming months and thereby reduce its pandemic payments bill.
The Irish Examiner estimates the cost of the two pandemic payment schemes has likely increased to more than €400m a week.The Department of Finance last month said it plans to publish new month-by-month profiles in April’s exchequer figures.
On the separate Government budget deficit, leading economists, including Kieran McQuinn, research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute, believe the gap will reach €30bn this year.
UCC economist Seamus Coffey said the new business supports announced over the weekend will increase the expenditure bill.
