One has to imagine that somewhere in the basement of the Department of Finance there’s a large, industrial-sized recycling centre for public policies.

How else can we explain the re-emergence of a proposal to abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers that was operational in Ireland until 2010, when the exemption was abolished? A policy that Fianna Fáil once again pulled out at its think-in on Monday, dangled to the waiting public to see whether we liked it and tossed back in the recycling by Wednesday?

The excitement of Irish budget season, I suppose, is that we never know exactly which policy might be fished out for us next. There is quite a collection down there waiting to be blindly selected.

Could it be the Help to Buy, which refunds eligible first-time buyers up to €30,000 – sorry, I mean the First Home Scheme, which takes a Government equity stake of up to 30 per cent – oof, I mean the Home Choice Loan, announced with jubilant fanfare in 2009 to lend to buyers the banks had turned away during the crisis, and which went on to issue a grand total of ... only 21 loans before expiring?

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Or perhaps it could be the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan, or the old Shared Ownership Scheme or the Starter Home Purchase Scheme, which was formerly known as the Local Authority Affordable Purchase Scheme. Or mortgage........

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