Post-budget is a fertile time for tactical ‘outrage’ of TDs

WHY didn’t the Government TDs, now kicking-up over the budget, do so earlier.

It’s not as if the cuts weren’t leaked in the media. Perhaps, when they dismissed the leaks as speculation, they meant it: which is almost sweetly naive. How crushing it must have been for them to discover the doom-and-gloom stories were true: that the Government intended to cut the children’s allowance and has now set its Scrooge-like face against reversing the decision.

Of course, one could be cynical and claim that what we are hearing now is no more than political noise to satisfy support bases: a way of allowing the cuts to go through, while minimising the potential electoral damage. But it would be mean to defame these political innocents.