Three businessmen give their views on Budget 2015.

The Irish Farmers’ Association gave the thumbs up to budget measures aimed at encouraging land leasing, but opposition parties and lobby groups claim the Government had failed rural communities.

While most people will breath a sigh of relief that Budget 2015 gave back more than it took away, one man who may be more disappointed than most is Prof John McHale of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said yesterday that his department would make provision for €185m in development and seed capital in the coming year to provide support for critical firms.

Real reform on capital gains tax for entrepreneurs in next October’s budget needs to be one of the follow-on policies from yesterday’s package of programmes, which were broadly viewed as being friendly to the small business community.

The Government has been criticised for failing to lower the Vat rate for the construction sector from 13.5%, but has been applauded for its near 50% reduction of the windfall tax on rezoned land, which is hoped to result in more land being freed up for development.

The next three budgets will deliver an easing of crippling taxes on the "squeezed middle", according to Finance Minister Michael Noonan, who heralded the beginning of the end of austerity with a €1bn budget spree.

THE big hoopla wasn’t the Budget yesterday, it will be the public-sector pay talks next year. Politically and fiscally, that is where the real action is.

The majority of yesterday’s budget measures were known long before Finance Minister Michael Noonan began his steady-as-we-go statement to the Dáil yesterday afternoon.

As Budget 2015 looms, we asked our readers to tell us what they’d like Michael Noonan to announce this afternoon.

Micheál Martin has been put on notice that if Fianna Fáil loses the looming Kilkenny by-election, his leadership will be under severe threat.

TODAY’S the day. We’ll discover if the Government has a chance of making history, and of becoming the first coalition in our history to be re-elected. Today’s Budget will be the first of two tests.

What would I do? We asked 12 organisations to outline how they would frame tomorrow’s budget.

On the eve of Budget 2015, Kehlan Kirwan looks at what SMEs should look out for in Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s speech.

Many PR battles are fought ahead of the budget as lobbyists try to influence the finance minister, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

A considerable number of people, possibly even a majority, will be unhappy with next Tuesday’s budget.

THE Fine Gael TD was recalling the uncertainty and fear that existed when the Coalition came to power in February 2011. “Three and a half years ago we didn’t know where the bottom was. We were still tumbling,” recalled the deputy.

You’d be forgiven for thinking it is Christmas time already after glancing through Sinn Féin’s alternative budget proposals. There’s goodies there for everyone, except the rich. It is a jam-packed financial hamper for many of their core voter groups.

YOU contacted me in your droves last week and expressed yourselves in words of one syllable — all because I queried the significance of the John McNulty debacle.

In many ways the Government’s dilemma over the scale of budget consolidation it should introduce on October 14 exposes in a nutshell the ongoing problems of an incomplete monetary union.