State debt balance sheets

Abstract

Since the establishment of the State the annual Finance Accounts have contained statements of the liabilities and assets of the Exchequer. These statements have shown a growing but unexplained excess of liabilities over assets and they have been in some respects incomplete. It has long been felt that this annual account was not sufficiently informative or scientific and should be supplemented, if not, indeed, replaced by a statement in the form of a balance sheet which would explain fully how borrowed moneys have been applied. The main purpose of this paper is to set out the basis adopted in the preparation of that Balance Sheet, and to give some information on the principal items which appear in it.