Thankfully, the Summer Economic Statement shows the Government has also acknowledged it will need to keep on supporting the economy and that debt will rise from €218.2bn in 2020 to €281.7bn by 2025.

While there is a real debate to be had about how much debt the State can carry, especially with the huge distortions in the economy due to the multinationals, there’s no real reason for us to expect that ring on the doorbell any time soon.

If anything the economic shock from the pandemic and the response of governments across the world – Ireland included – shows that the state can do things with its budget and spending that we told until very recently that it could not do, and if it tried to, we faced ruin.

If we can use the State’s balance sheet to battle a pandemic, then we should be willing to use it to create a better place for the citizens of this country, and in the wider European Union.

Even as total State debt rises by €70bn over five years, interest service costs will fall from €3.69bn to €3.45bn. That’s less than half the peak of €7.4bn hit in 2014 when debt was much lower.

Of course, interest rates could always rise, although the European Central Bank’s two year policy horizon doesn’t imply that, and markets are betting rates will stay at a negative 0.5pc through to 2025.

But that leaves concerns that a debt overhang will lead to slower growth.

This is the thinking that drove the policy response in Ireland and elsewhere during the financial crisis when brutal austerity was seen as the only way out from high debt.

Not only did that policy not deliver on its promise to cut the debt, but it exacted a huge economic toll that permanently damaged the job and income aspirations of a generation of Irish men and women.

What in fact rescued Ireland and allowed the State to service much higher levels of debt was growth. From 2014-2019, gross domestic product expanded by 78pc and even when you strip out all of the shenanigans in that number, the economy was still 43pc larger using GNI*.

With hindsight, the kind of austerity that Ireland and many others adopted as their economic orthodoxy caused more damage than good and thankfully the Government has now recognised this.

The idea that governments should pursue deficit and debt reduction at all costs has been exploded. Investment bank Morgan Stanley has looked at a century of economic data and found 76 instances where there had been a build up in public debt that is comparable to that caused by the Covid shock.

It found – contrary to the ‘best practice’ from the financial crisis ­– that those countries that were most successful at reducing debt were those that “kept expansionary monetary and fiscal policies in place for slightly longer periods”.

“The main finding from this historical analysis is that rather than just relying on maintaining primary surpluses, it is important to keep an adequate buffer (of about two percentage points) between real rates and real GDP growth for debt consolidation.”

In other words, not only can you get people back to work faster by not cutting spending drastically, you will also help foster the kind of economic growth that will help you reduce public debt.

The biggest risk to the eurozone as a whole is not inflation or a crisis caused by high levels of debt per se, it is that of a return to the kind of low growth and low inflation of the pre-pandemic era and that is the biggest hindrance to debt reduction.

The last thing the bloc needs is another era of prolonged unemployment and the kind of rising inequality that did so much to stoke populism after the financial crash as we socialised the losses of bankers and elites and imposed the costs on everyone else.

By the time 2025 comes around, Ireland’s national debt will stand north of €56,000 per person and someone will turn round and say it’s not even enough for a decent-sized deposit on a house and like all policies on the side of a bus, it will have lost its shock value.