The Fiscal Advisory Council has got up Government noses but has it stimulated serious thought, asks Kyran FitzGerald.

A cancer patient who was accidently rendered paraplegic by an operation to help manage her pain would “on the balance of probability” have lived longer if the surgery had not taken place.

The Netherlands is in the same fiscal boat as the leading peripheral eurozone states it has criticised for missing budget targets, and it needs spending cuts and structural reforms to revive a slumping economy, state think-tank CPB said.