Donohoe: Budget 2025 not designed to keep voters sweet before election

Paschal Donohoe delivers Budget 2025. Picture: Oireachtas TV

Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has denied that Tuesday's budget is an election budget designed to keep voters sweet before heading to the polls.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Donohoe said that an election budget would have seen the €25bn surplus doled out rather than allocating €16bn to two separate funds for next year.

He said it is difficult to strike the right balance when it comes to the budget as they have to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.

"But we are also deciding not to spend money that might not be available to us in the future which I think is quite a significant thing to do as this Dáil comes to an end," Mr Donohoe said.

Responding to criticism that the government has just thrown money at people through a series of one-off payments, Mr Donohoe said that such "giveaway budgets" tend to make people "an awful lot better off".

The last two budgets have been an effort to help people catch up with the rising prices, he said.

"I can understand that there might be a perception regarding the level of spending because of the measures that we have. For the vast majority of people, it is about helping them to keep up with the fact that prices have gone up by so much," Mr Donohoe said.

Prices have gone up by a fifth, according to the minister, who said that it would "look very mean" in the eyes of many people if the government did not step in to help.

Finance Minister Jack Chambers said the cost of living package in particular is about giving workers and families a break.

He said the budget also supports carers and invests in public services.

Mr Chambers said that of central importance is the investment in the future with infrastructure playing a key role and scaling delivery of housing with the €1.25bn to the Land Development Agency and the €1bn capital injection for Irish Water.

"The main context of my speech was how we would frame the future in the context of infrastructure investment and what we want to do in housing, energy, water and transport," he said.

"It is very much future-focused around being careful and developing a framework on how we will invest in the future using windfall receipts carefully to really invest in areas that will make a difference to people, communities and businesses."