Good morning colleagues, 

The Irish Times top news stories this morning include reports, from inside the Leinster House bubble, that it’s budget day, "one of the biggest days in the entire political calendar." There'll be few, if any, real surprises today (it's pretty much all out there), unless of course they also announce a date for the election.

For those of you raised on episodes of Sesame Street, today's words are "bumper", "giveaway", "double payment" and there might even be a "one for everyone in the audience" deployed as the day goes on. Today's numbers are 14bn (Apple) and 59.8bn (tax revenues), while today's letters are VAT, PAYE, USC and PRSI.