No more messing with USC, much damage has been done

Having promised in his leadership election campaign to help those people who get up early in the morning and who work and pay taxes, Leo Varadkar’s bluff will be called in October when his finance minister presents the first budget of their joint stewardship of the economy, writes Jim Power.

At the National Economic Dialogue last week, appropriately known as NED, the taoiseach introduced a new term to the lexicon: “The hidden fiscal space”. This should not be mistaken for “the fiscal space”.

There are many definitions of the fiscal space, but it is basically defined as the amount of money the Government will have at its disposal for tax cuts and expenditure increases, once all existing commitments have been met and EU fiscal rules are complied with, particularly the so-called Expenditure Benchmark.