Coronavirus will rip a €30billion hole in the economy this year.
Paschal Donohoe has updated his forecast €23billion debt forecast by €7billion from only a month ago.
He said a huge jump will be “inevitable” because of spiralling costs to the Exchequer.
The Minister for Finance has told the Dáil this afternoon that the cost of the virus is going to be way more than he initially expected.
Only last month he said that the estimated hit would be in the region of €23billion, with a worst case scenario of €30billion mentioned.
But Mr Donohoe now says that it has already surpassed the €23billion by hundreds of million more in just a few weeks.
And he said that the new grants for businesses announced last week, the ongoing coronavirus welfare supports that will be paid beyond June, and increased health service costs will see it soaring towards the upper end of the estimates, €30billion.
Mr Donohoe said: “I do believe it is inevitable that further decisions will have to be made in the coming weeks in relation to, for example, income supports, in relation to how we support our health services and because of that, and because of the external environment we’re in, the figure will be ahead of €23billion and I expect already that we are already approaching the upper end of the deficit outlines in the Government’s stability programme.”
