DUBLIN: Ireland’s tax take at the end of the first quarter of 2015 was 5.5 percent above target and over 13 percent higher than a year before, as government spending came in 1.4 percent lower than anticipated, data showed.
Ireland’s budget deficit, set to fall below three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year after ballooning during its financial crisis, stood at 2.3 billion euros (1.7 billion pounds) a year ago but swung to a 197 million-euro surplus at the end of March.
However Ireland’s Finance Ministry said that was impacted by a 1.6 billion-euro transfer to the exchequer from the country’s national pension reserve fund, which was partly used to complete the early repayment of Ireland’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout loans.
