combination of known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

The Central Bank has warned about driving a thriving economy towards a cliff edge; the National Treasury Management Agency says our property market is — again — looking like a runaway train, and the National Competitiveness Council says we are too dependent on a handful of multinationals to fill tax coffers. If that was not enough to cause election planners — of course they’re at it — to drop if-I-have-it-I’ll-spend-it fantasies, the prospect of a no-deal or even a hard deal Brexit looms. And then there is the Trump factor. The possibility that he might tax American companies with foreign bases at a punitive level unless they “bring the jobs home” is very real. Those are some of the issues colouring budget thinking, a process made even more difficult by idiocies like the granny grant scheme proposed by out-of-his-depth Transport Minister Shane Ross.

Despite all of those constraints, Government is indulging in a precarious political game — kite-flying. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has suggested the “squeezed middle” will benefit from tax-band changes in October. He has also indicated that carbon taxes will rise, and that there will be a “general focus on investment in public services and infrastructure over tax reduction”, whatever that actually means.

It is easy to criticise politicians for trying to buy votes — imagine — but surely we have learned. Every promise comes with a bill, one that, one way or another, will be paid by taxpayers. This seems a moment for a determined response to the housing crisis, prudent planning, and an acceptance that any other benefits flowing from this budget will be modest.