Blunder 'will not change Budget': Noonan

The Government’s discovery that it is €3.6bn better off following an accounting blunder will make no difference to the Budget, the Minister for Finance has said.

Michael Noonan said that while the money means the country’s debt is lower in percentage terms, the lump sum has no bearing on money coming in or money going out.

“We are now more sustainable because the debt is lower,” he told RTE. “But it makes no difference to money in and money out, or budgetary matters.”

The Government is hoping to secure anything from €3.6bn to €4bn in the Budget on December 6.

Opposition TDs called for Taoiseach Enda Kenny to announce a review of the Government’s approach to the Budget.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said it will no longer need to make €3.6bn of cuts to meet the EU/IMF target.

But Mr Noonan ruled that out.

The €3.6bn in question was lent by the National Treasury Management Agency and the Housing Finance Agency, but both agencies recorded the sum as money owed, essentially doubling the debt.

Mr Noonan said he was working towards putting measures in place to prevent such a blunder from happening again.

He said his focus was to implement a system that would ensure the right checks and balances are in place.

“The mistake was in calculating the overall Government debt,” he went on. “What it does for us is it reduces the amount of the overall Government debt in real terms, in percentage terms.”

The overall debt is said to be 2.3% lower than it was before the discovery of the money.