Following Minister Lenihan’s speech last week on the next Budget, this post takes stock of the latest estimates of receipts and expenditure and puts the progress so far in reducing the budget deficit in a ten-year perspective. It then outlines eight things that need to happen over the coming five years, in order to get the deficit back down under 4%.

With so much of the focus of the media and markets on Greece and its PIGS neighbours in the eurozone, one could easily forget that the UK will have the largest deficit in the EU this year and next. This post suggests that being outside the eurozone is a two-way street for the UK. The lack of restraint on its fiscal policy is already showing, with a simple index of government finance statistics placing the UK finances as the weakest of 24 developed countries.

With NAMA set to swing into operation, this post outlines the elephant in the room for NAMA: yields on Irish property. It also discusses how NAMA could still work for taxpayers – if those working for NAMA ensure that they make themselves fully aware of the true yields on various types of Irish property and how those yields may correct themselves over coming years.