Ireland: Fiscal Transparency Assessment

IMF Staff Country Reports, July 16, 2013

Source details

Canonical URL

Ireland: Fiscal Transparency Assessment

Other formats

• Markdown version
• Structured JSON version
• Bundle manifest

Bibliographic details

• Published: July 16, 2013
• Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781484303924.002

Summary

• The paper discusses Ireland’s Fiscal Transparency Assessment.
• The Irish government has ambitious plans to improve the timeliness, quality, and comprehensiveness of its budgets, statistics, and accounts.
• Ireland has the capacity and information to bring its fiscal transparency practices into line with international best practice standards within a reasonable time frame, and at relatively modest additional cost.
• The Irish administration already incurs many of the fixed and ongoing costs associated with modern accrual-based accounting, and risk-based fiscal management.
• Fiscal reporting in Ireland is characterized by a high degree of disclosure but also a high degree of fragmentation.

Key findings

• Ambitious government plans to improve fiscal transparency across budgets, statistics, and accounts.
• Existing capacity and information indicate feasibility of aligning practices with international best practice.
• Incremental improvements would require relatively modest additional cost because many fixed and ongoing costs are already incurred.
• Current fiscal reporting combines high disclosure with high fragmentation, implying scope for consolidation and better integration.

Policy implications and recommendations (implied by assessment)

• Prioritize measures that improve timeliness, quality, and comprehensiveness of budgetary, statistical, and accounting outputs.
• Leverage existing accrual-based accounting and risk-based fiscal management processes to minimize additional costs of reforms.
• Address fragmentation in fiscal reporting to enhance coherence and accessibility of information for policymakers and the public.

Subjects and keywords

• Subjects: Budget planning and preparation; Expenditure; Financial statements; Fiscal risks; Public debt; Public financial management (PFM)
• Keywords: annual budget; budget documentation; Budget planning and preparation; budget year; central bank; chief financial officer; CR; debt service; Europe; expenditure forecast; Financial statements; Fiscal risks; General government financial assets; General government gross revenue; Global; government expenditure; government finance statistics manual; government spending; government support; indirect tax; ISCR; nominal GDP; public expenditure; State agency; time horizon

Source: Ireland: Fiscal Transparency Assessment, IMF Staff Country Reports 2013, Issue 209

Content in this bundle

• Ireland: Fiscal Transparency Assessment; IMF Country Report 13/209; March 2013
  • Ireland: Fiscal Transparency Assessment; IMF Country Report 13/209; March 2013 (Markdown version)
  • Ireland: Fiscal Transparency Assessment; IMF Country Report 13/209; March 2013 (PDF)