It’s important not to bite the hand that feeds

The success or failure of any budget, if indeed success is defined as the achievement of the borrowing targets, is heavily influenced by the economic assumptions that underlie it.

This is particularly true and particularly important at the moment, given the continued, obvious fragility of the economy and the fact that €2.5bn was the adjustment delivered rather than the full €3.1bn, which was the choice favoured by many.

The Department of Finance has based its budgetary arithmetic on growth of 2% in GDP in 2014. For what it is worth, the ESRI is forecasting growth of 2.6%; the Central Bank 2%; and the OECD 1.9%. We have to accept that accurate economic forecasting is by its very nature imprecise at best and impossible at worst.