Opposition attacks ‘budget from hell’

FAMILIES are being asked to “pay back” for the past 10 years of wastage when they were lured into buying inflated property and given pre-election bribes by the Fianna Fáil Government.

The opposition strongly criticised yesterday’s budget which they said provided a bailout for their property developer friends of Fianna Fáil while asking ordinary families to pay the price. The Labour Party described it as “the budget from hell” and said it risks further depressing the economy while Fine Gael said it utterly ignored the growing jobs crisis.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said it was a “payback budget” and hit out at the announcement a new agency will spend up to e90 billion buying assets including devalued property, from banks. Mr Gilmore said: “Working families are going to be paying more in revenue, more in tax, are going to end up losing mortgage interest relief, the Early Childcare Supplement and people on welfare having to give up their Christmas bonus. And what for? So... the Government can put even more money not only into the banks, but now to buy up the land and the properties that were speculated on by their friends back over the past decade.”

Fine Gael’s spokesperson on finance Richard Bruton said the double cut of the Early Childcare Supplement and full-time mortgage interest relief will be very difficult for young families.

“They are the families who have had to carry the real can for the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. They are the families with negative equity, they are the families that risk losing their jobs and this budget is targeted at them,” he said.

“The people taking the strain are the people who have been lured into huge mortgages, who have young children and are worried about their jobs. They are the generation taking the real strain for the mistakes made by this Government,” he said.

Labour Party spokesperson on finance Joan Burton said the Early Childcare Supplement was an “electoral bribe” and pushed up creche fees which young families will not now be able to afford. “You are offering the services of the Irish people as firefighters,” she told Finance Minister Brian Lenihan in the Dáil. “The real effect of this budget is tragically going to be to drive this country further into a recession.” She said: “The Government does not have vital political capital to call the country to unity and this is why there will be little public acceptance of the budget measures.”

Mr Bruton said it was a “book-keeper’s budget” with no imagination or emphasis on stimulating the economy.

“It is bitterly disappointing that there is absolutely no focus on what we are going to do about employment. The Government seems to have thrown in the towel on employment. They are forecasting 250,000 jobs will go and yet there is no coherent strategy either on job protection or investment to create opportunities for the future,” said Mr Bruton.