Budget 2015 - Moderate, reassuring, appropriate

The majority of yesterday’s budget measures were known long before Finance Minister Michael Noonan began his steady-as-we-go statement to the Dáil yesterday afternoon.

There were no spectacular impositions; neither were there any reckless hostage-to-fortune concessions. Blatant opening bids in a campaign to get this coalition re-elected did not overly colour what was essentially the first opportunity not to impose cuts in seven years. Rather a series of incremental measures to try to generate employment and improve the living standards of lower paid workers and the unemployed informed the entire process. Most of the measures had been promised if not outlined many months ago by Mr Noonan and his colleague, Reform and Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin — yesterday they were delivered.

Anyone who expected the life-changing cuts of the last seven years to be reversed in a single afternoon would have been sorely disappointed, but the assured tone and quiet determination that epitomises so much of Mr Noonan’s work was in evidence. His unambiguous early statement on the 12.5% corporation tax rate — “it is settled policy, it will not change” — set a confident note. His announcement that the “double Irish” and that companies claiming profits in Ireland will have to pay taxes in Ireland recognised the changing realities of international tax laws. These shifting winds have such an influence on our economic well being that we cannot ignore them. Hopefully yesterday’s announcement will give certainty to foreign investors while reassuring colleagues in the EU that the wild west days of Irish financial regulation are long gone.