Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 20 November 2025
265. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the criteria used by his Department to classify a credit-facility, loan-commitment or standby line as a contingent liability for inclusion in the Government's contingent-liabilities register; to state whether these criteria have been updated in the past five years; and to confirm whether any credit-line exposures are known to the Department but remain unpublished. [64767/25]
View answer289. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance whether the Department has examined the treatment of hidden credit-line exposures within the European System of Accounts framework; to indicate whether any Irish exposures have been escalated to Eurostat; and to set out whether revisions to national-accounts classifications are anticipated. [64795/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 265 and 289 together.
A report on ‘Interest-Rate Swaps & Fixed-Rate Loans: Hidden Credit Lines’ was recently published by an organisation called Bank Confidential. This report raises a range of allegations primarily related to the sale of interest-rate swaps to small and medium enterprises in the United Kingdom.
Contingent assets and contingent liabilities are defined under the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) as agreements whereby one party is obliged to provide a payment or series of payments to another unit only where certain specific conditions prevail.
Reviews of government accounts classifications are undertaken by the CSO, and validated by Eurostat. Details of classification decisions are published on the CSO’s website at the following address.
www.cso.ie/en/methods/governmentaccounts/classificationdecisions/
My Department also publishes information on contingent liabilities in accordance with EU Directive 2011/85. The latest report was published on the Department of Finance’s website on 30 October. A paper by my Department at the below address sets out how the data is categorised, including into government guarantees, non-performing loans, and liabilities stemming from the operation of public corporations.
assets.gov.ie/static/documents/contingent-liabilities-an-overview-april-2021.pdf.
All contingent assets and liabilities known to the Department and meeting the definition outlined in the European System of Accounts are included in the periodic publication, with the exception of entities whose liabilities do not exceed 0.01% of GDP.
