DAVY VIEW

Ireland’s public finance data for March showed a buoyant 15% growth rate in tax receipts in Q1 to €19.7bn. This is well ahead of official forecasts and suggests that jobs creation, consumer spending and the multinational sector remain robust. Corporation taxes were up 71%, still showing exceptional growth. The Minister for Finance reiterated that he will soon bring proposals to invest corporate taxes in a new long-term fund. The upshot of the Q1 data is that our forecast for the government balance to equal €9bn (or 1.7% of GDP) in 2023 now looks too conservative.