Nearly every Irish budget day has one surprise

THE surprise was that people were surprised. Nearly every Irish budget day has one surprise. One sting in the tale. A surprise they didn’t think people would make a fuss about.

Over the years, the surprises have been things like decentralisation of the civil service, which meant a few hundred people who were paid to play Patience for a decade while their jobs moved to the sticks. Then, there was NAMA, which claims to make a profit, even though it buys houses back from Yanks for three times more than it sold them.

There was the old people’s medical card cut, in 2009, which led to the most quietly threatening mass since the Spanish Inquisition.