Fergus Finlay: Soup budget designed to keep us fed until after an early election

As the words of budget day start to translate into figures, most of us are going to feel a bit better off, able to face at least the immediate future with more confidence

Taoiseach Simon Harris. My instinct tells me an election will be called for November 15.

Labour’s Ged Nash said it best. In the immediate aftermath of the budget, there were the usual angry speeches — but he spoke more in sorrow than in anger. And he was brilliantly dismissive when he described the budget as “gravy everywhere, a deep dinner plate drowned in tasty once-off measures to hide the fact and reality that there is very little real meat on offer to sustain anyone”.

He’s a plain spoken man, our Ged. Not pretentious like me. So he didn’t embellish the description. I’d probably have added something about tasty little cheesy croutons or crusty French bread. But they don’t go in for fancy embellishments in Drogheda. He just called it as it was, with the best line of the debate.