Michael McGrath appears to tamper Budget expectations following last year's massive giveaway
Finance Minister Micheal McGrath has once again ruled out further cost of living measures until the Budget, despite a forecasted €10bn budget surplus for the year.Officials in the Department of Finance now believe that inflation rates will fall “fairly dramatically” in the second quarter of this year and will be two percentage points less than expected.However, Minister McGrath said that while inflation has peaked, Ireland is not “out of the woods” yet.
Minister McGrath explained: “I have made it clear that the February package of supports will be the last cost of living intervention until the Budget and why the government has taken the decision to gradually phase out the reduced rate of tax on fuel over the months ahead.” He said: “If you look back at last year, we had a package worth about €11 billion [for the Budget], just under €7bn of it was core [expenditure] and just over €4bn was once off in nature.
“We have to consider the context within which we will be making budgetary decisions. We do have an expenditure rule. We made an adjustment to that rule last autumn, given the very high level of inflation that we were dealing with.”
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