‘While €220 million might seem like a lot, spread across two million income taxpayers it doesn’t amount to very much'

The amount of money available for new tax reliefs in Budget 2018 won’t buy a lot for individual taxpayers

Paschal Donohoe: the Minister for Finance is looking at an utterly changed economic landscape Picture: Bryan Meade

The brightest part of last Wednesday’s Summer Economic Statement (SES) is to be found in the first paragraph. Seven out of the ten jobs lost during the great recession have now been, in the words of the SES, clawed back. After that I’m afraid, the SES goes rapidly downhill.

It’s no surprise that it has landed in a quagmire of discussion over capital spend and rainy day savings, to the virtual exclusion of ...