Keep budget goodies on the shelf until 2016

One of the secrets to electoral politics is to ensure, in so far as possible, that the economic cycle is roughly in synch with the electoral cycle.

There is little political advantage to be gained in having an economic boom in the early part of the electoral cycle if it might have dissipated by the time the election comes round.

The Government was elected in early 2011 and effectively continued to pursue the broad policy put in place by the late Brian Lenihan. For the first two-and-a-half years economic conditions stayed very difficult. However, once the Government entered into the second half of the electoral cycle, the economic situation started to improve markedly and has built up quite a head of steam in the first eight months of 2014.