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CONSIDER FOR a moment four more or less random things we learned in the run-up to last week’s Budget. Each of them has a significant bearing on the public finances. Not one was given any prominence either in the vast bulk of commentary on the options facing Brian Lenihan or in the Budget itself, writes FINTAN O’TOOLE

Firstly, the Economic and Social Research Institute produced stark new figures on tax relief for private pensions. It showed that €8 out of every €10 goes to the top 20 per cent of earners. It also showed that giving this relief at the standard rate of tax (which is to say, making it available on an equal basis to all taxpayers) would raise revenue of €1 billion a year – significantly more than the savings made by cutting social welfare payments. More than four-fifths of this money would have come from the richest 20 per cent.