# "Why Austerity?" a great summary of the issues by Professor John McHale



## Brendan Burgess (2 Nov 2015)

John McHale presented the attached to the Royal Irish Academy's conference on austerity on Friday.

I have not seen the facts presented by anyone before in such a coherent and clear way. I suggested to him afterwards that he should make a programme on the topic.  It deals with a number of the myths repeated regularly in the media: 



So €46 billion of our €200 billion debt is due to the bailout of the depositors in the banks. In other words, it accounts for only around 25%.  Our low tax levels and high expenditure levels are the main culprits.


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## Brendan Burgess (2 Nov 2015)

And here is Séamus Coffey's paper to the same conference.

It contains a huge amount of useful information comparing our expenditure on areas such as health with other EU countries.

He also highlights the fact that we have very high Corporation Tax revenues this year and if these fall, we could be in real difficulty.

(Séamus has an article on the topic here: Permanent expenditure with temporary tax?) 

He proposes the following to deal with it:


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## 44brendan (2 Nov 2015)

Old age contributions bottom of the pile!! Also the fact that we have the lowest portion of >65's in the EU. Certainly these stats indicate that OAP spend is only a very minor portion of overall Social protection outlay.

Direct MNC contribution of 6.1 bln in 2015 is startling also. SC correctly points towards it being a vulnerability as well as a positive. Also figures take no account of indirect MNC contributions from income tax and supplier benefits etc. Infrastructure and political stability must be vital to the continuity of this income source and issues such as the current housing crisis and potential for a change in Government policy at next election must be viewed with some concern towards the continuity of growth/sustainability of this income source.


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## KlausFlouride (2 Nov 2015)

Fascinating that % spend on housing within SP is so high given all the mayhem going on at the moment. Is the 6.1 bln all MNC CT? Or does it include indigenous?


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## cremeegg (5 Nov 2015)

So from the first slide the Irish taxpayer borrowed €47bn to pay the depositors (and bondholders) at the Irish banks. How does this compare with the amounts the UK taxpayer provided to support the Irish operations of Uk banks. Ulster, BOS any others ?


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