Budget needs sensible policy, not stupid politics

Over the past week the IMF and others have warned or advised the Irish government to adopt a cautious approach in framing Budget 2019 and in managing fiscal policy thereafter, writes Jim Power.

This means that they want expenditure to be controlled and any tax cuts to be specifically targeted at areas that would increase labour force participation.

This is timely advice because this is the time of the year when the various government departments sit down to think about what they would like to get in terms of extra spending from the Minister for Finance in October and the time when the Minister gets inundated with pre-budget submissions from all sorts of interest groups.