Ireland has the fourth highest government debt to GDP ratio in the European Union, despite recording the largest drop in debt from the third quarter of 2013 to the end of the same quarter last year.

New figures published by the EU statistics office Eurostat show Irish debt now stands at 114.8 per cent, having fallen by 9.4 per cent from 124.2 per cent over the period under review.

With a government debt to GDP ratio of 176 per cent, Greece has the highest debt among Member States. Italy and Portugal have the second and third highest debt figures at 131.8 per cent and 131.4 per cent respectively.

The lowest ratio of government debt to GDP in the EU at the end of the third quarter of 2014 was in Estonia at 10.5 per cent.

At the end of the third quarter of 2014, the government debt to GDP ratio in the euro zone stood at 92.1 per cent, compared with 92.7 per cent for the preceding three months.

For the EU as a whole, the ratio decreased from 87 per cent to 86.6 per cent over the same period after fifteen consecutive quarters of increase..

Compared with the third quarter of 2013, the government debt to GDP ratio rose in both the euro zone from 91.1 per cent to 92.1 per cent and the EU28 from 85.3 per cent to 86.6 per cent.