December 6 confirmed as date for Budget 2012

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has this evening confirmed Tuesday, December 6 as the date for Budget 2012.

The budget will be the first delivered by the Fine Gael/Labour coalition, who must deliver savings in the order of between €3.6bn and €4-bn in order to meet the terms of the EU-IMF bailout.

However, the Government is going to wait until after the presidential election before informing people about the exact scale of cuts to be made.

A government spokesman dismissed suggestions that the timeline was designed to avoid hurting the chances of presidential candidates from government parties.

He said the reason for the delay was to ensure there was enough space and ample data to communicate the message to the public.