Cumulative budget surplus

Sir, – Cliff Taylor presents four options from safe to risky for using the cumulative €65 billion budget surplus which is projected over the next four years (Analysis, News, May 10th). These are paying down our national debt (which is very high by international standards), putting money away in a fund, boosting State capital investment and increasing current spending or cutting taxes.

Unfortunately, what is safe in economic terms is risky politically – Cliff Taylor acknowledges that there are not too many votes in cutting the national debt. And what is safe in political terms – yet more current spending and lower taxes – is risky from an economic standpoint.

We have a once-in-many-lifetimes opportunity to do things for which our grandchildren will look back and thank us. But I fear a goodly chunk of the windfall will be used to do something which looks responsible but which is nothing of the sort. One of your front-page reports tells us that the investment of our surplus tax billions will not cover the additional costs associated with our ageing population (News, May 10th). But that won’t stop our political masters from trying.

They have reports which told them how to defuse the pensions time bomb. But as ever they cravenly abdicated once they heard the usual noise from the Opposition benches. Expect yet again to see the Government dress up fiscal irresponsibility as the precise opposite. They will put a large chunk of the surplus into a fund, which has the appearance of acting responsibly, and will then raid that fund to discharge current expenditures which should have been managed differently and with a dollop of political courage. – Yours, etc,