Sir, – Paul Williams makes an important point (Letters, May 26th). New expenditure programmes do not necessarily dictate additional taxes or borrowing. They can be financed by cutting expenditures which are wasteful, useless or simply no longer necessary. This is a truth which hides – or is hidden – in plain sight in much of the discourse on our public finances.
Total Government expenditure for 2021 is projected as being of the order of €90 billion. Debt servicing and EU contributions account for in excess of $9 billion so that other expenditures are about €80 billion.
Surely the elimination of waste from existing expenditure programmes has some role to play in financing new and necessary programmes. And yet the only time we hear of efficiencies or productivity improvements is when the Minister for Public Expenditure of the day makes oblique (and soon forgotten) reference to them when seeking to provide the flimsiest of cover for the most recent raid on the public purse by public sector trade unions. Mr Williams calls for a forensic look at where the State is spending money. The taxpayers of this country should expect and demand no less from Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath and their respective departments. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
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Dublin 6.