Hope lies beyond ‘Misery Hill’ if Government sticks to EU strictures

The offices of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council are located not far from Dublin’s Misery Hill, named supposedly for the resident leprosy victims and the gallows the docklands district once housed in centuries past.

And in its latest report, the fiscal watchdog — which was set up at the height of the banking crisis to prevent any repeat of the human misery caused by the much more recent financial disaster — delivers another stinging warning about the dangers of spending windfalls from unexpected tax revenues.

The watchdog said the Government is paying so much lip service to the terms and conditions of the EU spending rules that are meant to stop public finances again sliding into another crisis.