Measures of a truly savage nature

There is pain on every page of the budget book and Fianna Fáil cannot be surprised if there is a public backlash, writes Paul O’Brien.

FOR once, the politicians were not dissembling or spinning. In the run-up to yesterday’s budget, the Government promised it would be bad. And that’s exactly how it proved. After years of giveaway budgets, the Government did Scrooge in reverse — turning from generous and avuncular to nasty and downright mean. Yes, the country’s finances are in horrific shape, and yes, some pain had to be inflicted on taxpayers in order to raise more revenues for public services, but even then, some of yesterday’s measures were truly savage.

Can, for example, the Government honestly defend the decision to impose the 1% income levy on all earners? It is one thing for the middle and higher classes to be hit with tax increases — that was to be expected. But the income levy will also apply to those on the minimum wage and below — and where’s the justice in that? Is it really fair to hit the most vulnerable workers in society at a time of recession? And while the middle classes were expecting to feel pain in the budget, can the Government really justify the extent to which they have been made suffer?