Tax revenues rise as State edges towards deficit target

Ireland has edged closer to reaching the 3% fiscal deficit target by 2015 agreed as part of the EU/IMF bailout programme.

Exchequer figures for the end of August show the headline deficit figure for the first eight months of the year has been reduced from €20.4bn at the end of Aug 2011 to €11.3bn this year.

“Tax revenues continue to perform well, albeit against the exceptionally conservative assumptions in Budget 2012, but with significant overruns in government spending. These effects have broadly offset each other, so the Government is on target to meet the 8.6% of GDP deficit target for 2012, albeit with some uncertainty about the strength of tax revenues in the important final quarter of the year,” said Davy economist, Conall MacCoille