Some €22 million in property tax has now been collected. Exchequer figures published this evening show €21 million collected in the month of April on top of €1 million in March.

The figures show government tax revenues for the first 4 months of the year are broadly in line with expectations from Budget Day and show an increase of €145 million on January-April of last year.

Spending is also under control so far this year with underspends in Health, Education and Social Protection.

These figures from the Department of Finance show that Income Tax, Excise Duty and VAT were all below Budget 2013 targets. But when the year-on-year comparisons were made we actually took in more than 2012.

Spending was down in 12 out of 16 government departments and we have also reduced our borrowing costs but servicing the debt was up.

Overall we are just over €6 billion in the red which is €1 billion less than last year and €3 billion less than Budget 2013 predictions.