Labour may have taken more damage than Fine Gael

ENDA Kenny had one bad moment in the Dáil — defending a six-figure salary for an adviser at a time of budget cuts — but otherwise Fine Gael had a good day.

Labour backbenchers, on the other hand, must be quickly reassessing the political realities of life following yesterday’s events.

They appear to have been badly outflanked by their coalition partners.

On Monday night, after Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin announced the first half of the budget — the spending cuts — Labour backbenchers, by and large, thought they had dodged a bullet.

The party’s newest TD, Patrick Nulty, was unhappy and privately preparing to walk, but most of the others thought the spending cuts could have been a hell of a lot worse.

The general impression seemed to be that the Labour ministers in Government — Howlin at Public Expenditure, Joan Burton at Social Protection, Ruairi Quinn at Education and Tánaiste and party leader Eamon Gilmore — had done a reasonable job of containing the cuts.

No large-scale revolt seemed likely, and none materialised. Instead, Labour TDs issued press releases through the party’s press office talking up Mr Howlin’s announcement.

“Labour delivers on commitment to defend young, old, the ill and less well-off,” declared Joe Costello.

“Labour ensures difficult expenditure decisions are fair and balanced,” said John Lyons.

“Budget shows Labour walks the walk in protecting the vulnerable,” said Gerald Nash.

The aim of the press releases was clear: To try and reassure any nervous backbenchers and demonstrate to the world that the party was unified.

Patrick Nulty poked a hole in the image of a party united yesterday. But Mr Nulty had been expected to rebel anyway, and wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that when Mr Noonan rose to deliver the second half of the budget — the tax hikes — it was a much softer announcement.

While it contained a lot of stealth taxes and charges, it also contained a handful of positive announcements that will do Fine Gael no harm — for example, the move to fulfil an election commitment to help first-time buyers who purchased houses during the height of the boom. The second problem was that Fine Gael backbenchers yesterday kicked up a fuss about the disability allowance cuts announced in the social protection budget by a Labour’s, Joan Burton.

Given their party’s core values, it should have been Labour backbenchers kicking up the fuss. But even though some had raised concerns privately about some of the cuts, they were too busy trying to present a united front in public.

As a result, they appear to have been outflanked by Fine Gael, and may just have shipped more damage from this budget than their coalition partners.