In January-March 2018, Government’s Consolidated Fund registered a deficit
of €60.8 million, according to the National Statistics Office.
Compared to the same period last year, recurrent revenue registered an increase of €41.1 million whereas total expenditure went up by €89.1 million. This resulted in a negative change in the Government’s Consolidated Fund by €48 million.
In January-March 2018, recurrent revenue was recorded at €914.8 million, up from €873.7 million last year. The comparative increase of 4.7 per cent was primarily the result of higher Income Tax and Value Added Tax which both increased by €31.1 million and €30.1 million respectively. Conversely, decreases
were mainly recorded in Grants (€22.8 million).
Total expenditure stood at €975.7 million up from €886.5 million due to added outlays on recurrent expenditure, capital expenditure and interest expenditure.
Recurrent expenditure stood at €872.6 million from €787.4 million last year. The main contributors to this increase were Programmes and Initiatives and Personal Emoluments with a rise of €62.2 million and €18.7 million respectively.
The main developments in the Programmes and Initiatives category involved added outlays due to social security benefits (€15.5 million), Medicines and Surgical Materials (€9.8 million), Feed in Tariff (€10.0 million), state contribution (€9.5 million which also features as revenue), allocation to local councils (€9.5 million), Treasury Pensions (€4.5 million), Health Concession Agreements (€4.3 million), Jobsplus Programmes (€2.4 million) and residential private care (€2.1 million).
The interest component of the public debt servicing costs stood at €55.9 million, up from €55.3 million last year.
Government’s capital expenditure witnessed an increase of €3.5 million, and was recorded at €47.3 million. This was mainly the result of higher investment incentives (€3.2 million).
At the end of March 2018, Central Government Debt stood at €5,460.7 million, down by €164.7 million over the corresponding month last year.