As already demonstrated, the public commitment of Irish money towards the maintenance of the army and the barracks by means of parliamentary taxation constituted a key contribution to the British Empire in the period 1692–1770. However, at times of particular political or economic crisis or emergency, additional funds were required at short notice. In England, the provision of such funds via the creation and maintenance of a national debt constitutes a key aspect of the late seventeenth-century financial revolution. The emergence of an English national debt was directly related to the expansion of the empire, as the debt was created in order to finance the maintenance of a naval and military establishment capable of winning wars and defending newly acquired territories.

Parliament-sanctioned government borrowing and the build-up of a permanent national debt in order to finance war commenced in earnest in England in the early 1690s. The Nine Years’ War saw existing practices in short-term borrowing extended and the new innovation of long-term borrowing introduced, the Bank of England established in 1694 and other fiscal experiments embarked upon. At the centre of these developments was the Westminster parliament, which, as the ultimate beneficiary of the constitutional revolution of 1688–9, facilitated the move from insecure, volatile and unsustainable royal debt to secure, safe and sustainable national debt. By enshrining in statute the repayment of public debts, be it at the outset of a new loan, the creation of a new financial institution, or through the conversion of short-term unfunded liabilities into long-term funded debts, the Westminster parliament revolutionized England's public finances and the country's ability to wage war, conquer new territories and, ultimately, to build an overseas empire.

Parliament-sanctioned government borrowing and the creation of a permanent national debt built upon a legislative foundation commenced in Ireland in 1716. As had been the case in England in the 1690s, the introduction of a permanent national debt to Ireland was a highly significant occurrence directly related to security concerns of both a national and an international character, on this occasion concerning Ireland, England, Scotland and France.