The myth of the ‘fair’ budget that was anything but fair

ON the day after the budget is delivered, it is customary for some part of it to unravel. The first thing to start coming apart in Brian Lenihan’s plan presented yesterday should be the myth that everyone — rich and poor — will share equal pain.

It was the “fair” budget that was anything but; one filled with empty gestures of cuts for ministers who won’t be around to take them, while loading a burden of suffering on children too small to understand, young people too disillusioned to stay in the country, and welfare recipients too busy worrying about how they will get through this difficult Christmas.

In the last budget speech the myth was that “we have turned the corner”. The year before that, it was our “call to patriotic action” and this year’s big budget myth from Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, was: “Everybody pays, and those who can pay most”.

It heralded the generosity of welfare increases during the years Fianna Fáil was in power while lamenting the pain that has been taken by politicians and even bankers.

Mr Lenihan boasted that his party’s “commitment to those in need stands up”. Children’s allowance was cut by €10 (or €20 for those unfortunate enough to be the third child) on top of €16 cuts already taken last year. But families should be grateful, the minister reminded us, because: “The new rates are still three times higher than they were in 1997!”.

In contrast, the Government, which will see its salaries cut by slightly bigger rates — of around 6% — had shown “great forbearance” in making hard decisions.

“The Taoiseach and ministers have already taken substantial reductions in their pay,” Minister Lenihan declared as the country reached for their Kleenex.

While PRSI changes will bring “further cuts in their net pay” the Government has “nonetheless” decided to introduce “another reduction” in the salaries of the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and ministers.

Politicians were not the only ones to whom our hearts go out in sympathy. Bank bond holders too have already “shared a burden” and “absorbed losses” the minister reminded us. And while there will be new laws to allow subordinated bond holders to take more pain “there is a limit to burden sharing” they can take. Unfortunately, this “limit” did not apply to the blind and disabled whose payments are down €8 a week. It did not apply to children who will not just face a €10 cut in the children’s allowance but a school bus increase of €50 for primary and €350 for secondary pupils, or the unwelcome extended to all new babies by an €8 cut in the sum mothers get while they take time off work for maternity leave, in what is one of the starkest examples of how women and children pay in cuts imposed by a male dominated political system.

The “limit” extended to bankers did not apply to already struggling unemployed people who face a further €8 cut in their dole payments in the run up to Christmas.

And all of this while €100 million is being promised for a Tralee bypass to ensure that Kerry South independent Jackie Healy Rae voted these measures through.

It was clear from what was strategically leaked to last Sunday’s newspapers that the Cabinet wanted to present cuts for politicians and a €200,000 cap on public sector pay as the headline item of the budget. But, in truth, the €14,000 cut in the Taoiseach’s pay and €10,000 in ministers’ pay was nothing more than an empty gesture.

The cuts will be cold comfort to people suffering around the country, particularly when the Taoiseach will still have a massive salary of €214,000. In fact, the gap between him and the poorest widens with his pay going from 13 times the minimum wage to 14 times the minimum wage.

There will be no cuts to TDs’ pay, which will be protected for Fianna Fáil when they are on the opposition benches in the new year.

In pedalling their big “fairness” myth, the Government was careful not to reveal too much detail in the budget — leaving much of the bad news in complicated small print.

This will ensure many workers will not see the full extent of their cuts until January pay packets or in the early months of next year, perhaps when the general election has taken place.

The minister claimed he created a “rational, sustainable and fair tax system”. In the run up to this budget, the cabinet and Fianna Fáil TDs were acutely aware that the only chance they had to get away with €6bn in cuts and restore some credibility was to make it appear that the burden would be shared equally.

Mr Lenihan gave a good impression that they were doing so. But the penny they are throwing at the poor is likely to drop sooner rather than later. In recent weeks, the Irish people have been told about the price of everything. But the Government has been silent on the value of everything about to be lost.