ANALYSIS:WHAT REMAINS of faith in Ireland's ability to dig itself out of its hole is disappearing fast. Yields on 10-year Government bonds soared again yesterday, closing at just under 7.5 per cent. These are the levels reached by Greece in early February when other euro zone countries were forced to give the first concrete assurance that the Aegean basket case would be bailed out.

That the yield on Irish Government debt has risen to such peaks is bad enough. That Ireland is alone at such heights is worse still as it adds greatly to vulnerability. Until a few weeks ago, Irish and Portuguese bonds shadowed each other. Clinging together desperately offered some comfort. But then they began decoupling. Now Ireland is out on its own. Yields are more than a full percentage point above the euro bloc’s next weakest unbailed-out member. That is not where one wants to be now.

Portugal, with its minority government, much more divided politics and very limited record of swallowing austerity budgets, is adjudged by the markets to be considerably less risky to lend to than Ireland. One could argue that this is not rational, but that would be futile now. We are – cliché of clichés – where we are.

And that place looks very much like endgame. It is increasingly difficult to see a safe way down from the woozy peaks of 7.5 per cent. To switch metaphors from mountaineering to football, Ireland is now two down with 10 minutes to go. Scoring twice in the short time before the final whistle (the next bond auction) looks increasingly improbable. But it is still possible. Here’s how.

The first strike should come with a successful multi-annual budget that has Brussels’ stamp of approval. Given how much groundwork has gone into its preparation and the general consensus among the parties, this is very scorable provided no one goes down in a heap before the trigger is pulled (Government collapse or a vote against the budget are both a little more likely owing to this week’s political developments).

But let’s assume it’s 2-1 by December 8th. The question then is where would the equaliser come from? The answer: economic growth.

Closing a budgetary gap of the size that this State is burdened by can happen only with a combination of budget tightening and economic growth.

The past two days have kept hopes alive that the domestic economy might just be picking itself up off the floor.

The two latest indicators – tax returns and jobless benefit claims – were released on Monday and yesterday respectively. Both these October figures show that the final quarter of the year has started as well as could possibly have been hoped for.

Year-on-year tax revenues rose in October. This was the second month on the trot that taxes were higher than a year earlier.

Comparing taxes with the same month a year earlier is the best indicator of a turnaround because no seasonally adjusted numbers are available to allow much meaningful comparisons of monthly developments.

That is not the case for the figures on dole recipients. These are seasonally adjusted, which makes month-on-month readings the ones to watch for signs of a turnaround. The numbers signing off the live register were large last month and followed another fall in September.

If further signs of resurrection are registered in the coming months, Team Ireland can avoid defeat.

That gets us to extra time. With slog and some luck anything is possible at that point.