Kenny forced to rethink policy

THE opposition’s handling of the stamp duty debacle says as much about Fine Gael’s inexperience and ineptitude as it does about the coherence and competence of the alternative government.

With Enda Kenny continuing to defend the ‘centrepiece’ of his budgetary policy, it took the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Labour leader and an outcry among economists to bring him into line, pointing out that any change in stamp duty would need to happen quickly and decisively so as not to drastically influence the housing market.

The impact of the tax itself may be small, but the political impact of its mishandling is devastating.