Let’s not get carried away with progress

In October the Government ignored the advice from domestic and international agencies such as the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, by implementing a mildly stimulatory budget rather than the €2 billion adjustment that had been pencilled in for some time.

On the surface, at least it chose this course of action based on the stronger-than-expected economic recovery and the lower-than-expected level of government borrowing on the back of the economic recovery.

In reality this budgetary stance was heavily motivated by political considerations and the growing unpopularity of the Government. While the budget has done little to improve the popularity of the Government thus far, one can only imagine how unpopular it would be if it actually had delivered a further €2bn in revenue raising and expenditure cutting measures.