Just not enough to go around - Budget 2017

WHEN Finance Minister Michael Noonan rises to present Budget 2017 in the Dáil this afternoon a great many people who still find it tough and are just barely getting by under the ongoing programme of austerity, will be hoping against hope that he pulls something out of the hat for them. From that perspective, it promises to be a populist catch-all budget with something small for everyone in the audience.

In adroit management of public expectations, Mr Noonan recently warned that no hats would be thrown in the air tomorrow after the €1.2bn resting in the exchequer coffers has been doled out. Proof again, if it were needed, that the tax base in this country is too small. While that sum may be enough for what essentially looks like being a people’s budget, it would not go very far towards mending the financial crises surrounding health, education, and housing.

The trouble is that an awful lot of money will go towards buying off organisations. That’s not to say that the elderly do not deserve the rise of €5 a year as promised by Fine Gael before the last election. This has been the centre of last-minute haggling, described yesterday by Mr Noonan as “small differences”, between Fianna Fáil and government which wanted to stall payment until March or June so it could also be given to other welfare recipients including disabled people, carers, widows, and the blind. With the administration in a Fianna Fáil arm-lock, a party now visibly in election mode with Fine Gael also aware of the importance of capturing the grey vote.