The Donohoe decade: Ireland's budget surpluses were built on a corporate tax tightrope

As Paschal Donohoe moves on to a new role in the World Bank, Ronan Smyth runs the rule over his work as Ireland's finance minister

Paschal Donohoe chairing a Eurogroup meeting in 2022. Mr Donohoe was elected president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers for three terms, making him one of the most influential voices in the eurozone. File picture: Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg

After nearly 10 years of managing the government’s coffers, in some form or another, departing finance minister Paschal Donohoe can be credited with seeing the country through a number of difficult periods, but he leaves behind a much larger State than he inherited which is faced with some of the same problems that all the money can’t seem to solve.

First elected as a TD in February 2011, he would serve a variety of ministerial roles before landing at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in 2016.