Sir, – While your editorial “The Irish Times view on the economy in 2023: resilient performance though risks lie ahead” (December 28th) points to resilience in the economy as the jobs market has held up, total employment increased with the targets for both corporation tax of some €23 billion and the overall budget surplus figures being met, this is no time to be overly sanguine about the state of the economy.
Now that the arrangements for setting aside substantial monies in the sovereign wealth funds to deal with both excess capital receipts, plus the need to accommodate and pay for the challenges of climate chaos have been put in place, we are told, State finances are not where they should be. Your leader recalls the “firm rap on the knuckles in the from the Fiscal Advisory Council” which the Government received, plus the charges of “gimmickry”, but it was much more than that.
Remember those other aspects of the Fiscal Advisory Council’s concern – an overspend of €13 billion last time plus the further overruns the fiscal watchdog has explicitly told us it expects to come?
These are not insubstantial issues. The 5 per cent annual increase ceiling in Government spending is there for sound reasons.
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Good housekeeping is important, as many of us have found to our cost. Not allowing undue extravagance to trump targeted spending should be uppermost in the minds of Ministers charged with heavy responsibility for prudence; she’s an unruly girl if given her head to spend wilfully.
But of course we don’t have an electorate to seduce ! – Yours, etc,
ALASTAIR CONAN,
Coulsdon,
England.