When Brent oil prices are close to $120 a barrel at lunchtime and have fallen to $107 by the time of the Nine O’Clock news – as happened on Thursday – trying to work out how Government should respond is not easy. While some delay to see how things panned out was wise, it looks like the Government will act after next week’s Cabinet meeting.

Something to help less well-off households and a temporary cut in excise duty may be on the way, along with specific measures aimed at hauliers and exposed businesses. But the political challenge is to knock on the head the idea that everyone should be insulated from all additional costs.

In public debate in Ireland, the budget constraint does not exist. For now, the billions from corporate tax payments continue to roll in. If you want to half fill the glass, this means that the Government does have the resources to act to help those hit hardest and, unlike many other administrations, does not have to scrabble around to find the cash. The half-empty view is that it is best not to bet on this tax windfall continuing forever.

A few things this week underline this point. The background online debate in the US about the massive $300 billion in annual profits declared by big US multinationals in Ireland and, in the first instance, taxed here, is worthy of note. So is a new tariff investigation from the Trump administration, which has again pointed to Ireland’s huge trade surplus with the US as an issue to be addressed. Meanwhile, a report published this week by University of Galway professor Alan Ahearne and funded by the Collison brothers, who founded Stripe, warned that geopolitical change meant Ireland could not rely on inward investment continuing at the pace we have seen in the past.

Gerry Adams says civil case ‘verged on show trial’ and ‘should never have been........

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