Tax revenues for the first 7 months of the year are running 2.5% or €500 million ahead of target.

The latest Exchequer figures show tax take of over €20 billion with the figures 9% or €1.68 billion more than at the end of July 2011.

The Department of Finance says income tax, VAT and corporation tax receipts are all up.

However the report also shows the government has spent almost €26 billion since the start of the year.

This represents an over spend of €216 million on the projected target.

It means that by the end of last month there was an overall Exchequer deficit of €9.1 billion compared to €18.9 billion at the same time last year.

Read the statement in full href="http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/exchequerstatements/2012/excheqstatjuly.pdf">here