'Bankrupt and bewildered' public digest Budget 2011

Setting down his paper after digesting the gloomy pre-Budget forecast, Brian Duggan barely needed a moment to recall exactly how many jobs he’s applied for since being laid off.

“167 and counting,” said the former restaurant manager. “And you know how many interviews I’ve got? Five.”

The 61-year-old from Dun Laoghaire has even tried to find work as a film extra since his restaurant was forced to close two years ago.

“At my age who wants to employ me?” he said sipping a coffee.

“But I’ll get by. My wife works as a nurse and though she’s taken a big hit to her pay we’ll just about have enough to manage. Who I worry for is the low paid workers that are being hit by the Budget, it seems they’ll suffer the most while the affluent escape the pain.”

Pub manager Frank Doyle is also feeling the pain.

“At the start of the year I made a conscious decision,” he revealed. “I brought the staff in and told them they needed to go out of our way to be as positive as they could, to do all they could to try and cheer people up. There’s enough depression outside the door so we try to keep it out of here.”

The biting wind and driving sleet on the slush covered pavements did little to lift the spirits on Dublin’s streets as Finance Minister Brian Lenihan outlined the most swingeing budget in the State’s history.

Joanne Ryan, originally from Sligo, tried to warm her hands on her takeaway lunch carton as she took shelter on her office porch.

“I am one of the unlucky ones who bought their own home three years ago in the boom,” she said.

“I’ve stopped watching the news because all I hear is one hit on homeowners after another. Before today I was just about getting by; paying my bills and maybe going out once a month. After today I’m not so sure.”

For 26-year-old council street cleaner Peter Tobin there was no escape from the bitter temperatures.

“I’ve been hit in the pocket and my girlfriend is going to lose child benefit for our three and a half year old Kate,” said the Dublin man.

“I reckon we’ll be around €130 down a month. We can’t cope on that.”

Nollaig Downey from the south Dublin suburb of Ranelagh is a clinical psychologist by profession, but writing is her hobby.

“My latest story is about a man who was laid off in London and moved to the west of Ireland to try and start again so of course the economic situation gives a context,” she said while slicing a scone in Bewley’s.

The mother of four would but wish the current situation was the stuff of fiction.

“I’d already taken a 14% cut off my pay before today and now it’s only going to get worse,” she said.

Paul Caswell, from Co Fermanagh lived in Dublin through the boom years of the Celtic Tiger.

“I moved away in 2005 at a time when Irish politicians were gallivanting around Europe lecturing everyone else as to how it supposedly should be done,” he fumed outside Buswell’s Hotel.

“They now hold out the country’s begging bowl. This Budget is going to make the hangover from the boom last for many more years.”

But while he lays blames at the Government’s door, he doubts whether political change will have an impact.

“I just wonder if a new government will make or even can make a difference.”

Yards away the masses of protesters made their feelings clear in a variety of ways.

Painter Ramie Lahy from Co Kilkenny did not seem concerned that his oil canvases portraying the country’s politicians as clowns were getting drenched.

“The theme is the circus that is Irish politics at the moment,” he explained. “Are you selling them?” one wag shouted out as he padded by on the treacherously slippy roadside.

“You couldn’t afford it,” Ramie snapped back, in words that resonated deeply.

In a bizarre episode ahead of the Budget announcement, brewing tension between demonstrators and gardaí was momentarily defused when waiters from the nearby five-star Shelbourne hotel delivered coffee and croissants to all those waiting outside the Dáil.

In another marketing coup, a well known bookmaker had erected a number of politically themed posters.

“It’s time to clean up!” they proclaimed.

A placard displayed by a lone protest with no discernable commercial interest put it rather more bluntly.

“Bankrupt, bollixed and bewildered!”