Giddy budget optimism could be a costly return to ‘boom-and-bust’

The new optimism bouncing around is great, but also scary. There’s the fear that it will disappear again, and the contradictory concern that it will take off like a rocket. We all know how that story ends.

The Cabinet returned from holidays this week and must have reflected that a summer can be a long time in politics, given the changes that have occurred since the May elections.

How different might those results have been had those European and local elections been held now, with all these positive economic indicators — as it was, the Coalition parties were at each other’s throats politically, and the electorate couldn’t wait to give them a good punch at the ballot box. But now we’ve more positive economic indicators, at which you could throw a stick each day and bring news of how many more of us are at work; the strength of our tax returns; that we are buying more washing machines; changing our car; boosting the business of our local hardware shops; and again queuing overnight for new houses coming on sale (in Dublin).