Knife of Brian out as sums don’t add up

WARNING: Government revenue estimates may go down as well as up — or more than likely, be completely wrong altogether.

Hence the sudden, desperate search for yet another €2 billion in cuts to try and stop borrowing exploding the deficit to €20bn this year.

The need for the fresh round of blood-letting in public services was only realised two weeks ago when the Department of Finance did its final sums for the year and realised things were even worse than feared.