The public finances are €1 billion better off than they were meant to be at this stage of the year. The tax take is running 7 per cent ahead of target, with income tax revenue alone about 13 per cent higher than had been expected.

And on the flipside, spending is running slightly behind schedule as a handful of large projects, such as the demolition of the Ballymun flats, has been delayed.

The net result is that the Exchequer was in surplus by €130 million at the end of June, with the €2.8 billion end-year deficit the Minister had forecast now to be reduced to a €1.1 billion borrowing requirement.

Better still, the general Government balance, which is more of interest to the European Commission under the Stability and Growth Pact, will probably now come out in surplus. As results go, it wouldn't be a bad one.

It is tempting to treat the new Exchequer numbers as more evidence - pure and simple - of the re-emergence of the Celtic Tiger.

Coming as they do in the wake of excellent economic growth and employment numbers from the Central Statistics Office, they seem to confirm a positive feeling that has been evident in the economy for some time.

A breakdown of the figures shows, however, that the picture is a little more nuanced than it might initially appear.

Stamp duties and VAT are indeed pointing to strong, straightforward buoyancy but other areas are a little more complicated.

Income tax receipts are, for example, running 13 per cent ahead of where the Department of Finance thought they would be, but the excess is due more to the work of the Revenue Commissioners than any massive pick-up in activity on ground level.

Of the €560 million excess received in income taxes to date, €452 million came from investigations into offshore and bogus non-resident accounts.

Corporation tax receipts are running at 6.3 per cent, or about €160 million, behind target, thus suggesting that the perceived buoyancy in the business world has yet to filter down into real profit growth.

A €259 million uptick in capital gains tax receipts meanwhile was primarily due to timing factors.

Department of Finance officials were quick yesterday to point out that, in fact, most of the tax take to date is not running farbeyond where they had expected it to be when special factors were stripped out.

The CSO's first-quarter economic figures, they intimated, should be taken with a pinch of salt until more time had passed and new evidence of underlying growth had emerged.

"Better, but still in the red," was the assessment of Mr Philip Hamell, the head of the Department's finance directorate.

It is convenient at this stage of the year for any buoyancy in the public finances to be played down, as Mr McCreevy faces into the so-called "estimates season".

This will see the Minister fending off various calls for additional spending from his Cabinet colleagues as each eyes the improving budgetary picture.

It is also true, however, that all sources of Exchequer income should pick up well over the remainder of the year if the economy is performing as well as most people think.

And as Mr Alan McQuaid, chief economist with Bloxham Stockbrokers points out, this may not even be necessary to maintain Exchequer health into next year.

"Even allowing for a slowdown in economic activity in the second half of the year, the Exchequer is going to be flush with funds going into 2005," he said yesterday.