The Government took in a better-than-expected €1.2bn in taxes last year.
By December end, the Government had to borrow €8.2bn to make up the difference between what the country had spent compared to monies taken in tax revenues. Still, that amount was €3.3bn better than the previous year, and was actually €4.6bn less when the one-off transactions were removed from the equation.
Just about all taxes yielded better than expected results, with Capital Gains Tax actually outperforming estimates by more than 40%.
Under rules specified by the Troika, the target deficit for 2014 was set to 4.7%. Exact figures will be dependent on GDP growth calculated by the Central Statistics Office, but the Department of Finance estimates that it is likely to be as low as 4%.