The tax take for the year to the end of May was €734m higher than expected.

At the end of May, the Exchequer recorded a surplus of €641m - that compares to a deficit of almost €3.5bn in May 2014.

High consumer spending in the first five months of the year saw €5.7bn in VAT collected, an increase of almost 10 percent on 2014.

Corporation tax was also up - by half a billion euro, year on year.