Pizza for Paschal's people, shepherd's pie for McGrath: How Budget 2024 came together

Finance Minister Michael McGrath and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe during Budget 2024 at Government Buildings, Dublin.

At 2.45am on Tuesday morning, the printers in the Department of Finance were whirring away, the staff manning it in for the long-haul, publishing the material that would make up that day's — and arguably the year's — political set-piece: Budget 2024.

Along the corridors, Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe called into offices to thank his officials for their diligence. He was headed home to catch some sleep before being picked up at 7.30am to present the budget along with Finance Minister Michael McGrath to their Cabinet colleagues. The departmental officials stayed another few hours to firm up the sums.

The small cohort who'd remained on the ministerial corridor had worked marathon hours to finish the speeches, burning through pizzas, coffee, and a few handfuls of sweets where necessary.

Elsewhere in the building, McGrath worked with his officials beyond 1am on the technical details of the tax packages that would be unveiled in the Dáil, fuelled by a shepherd's pie ordered to take away from a nearby pub.

Around 7.30am, Mr Donohoe and Mr McGrath were picked up by Garda drivers, just 10 hours after the final agreement on the size of a departmental spend with a minister — Social Protection's Heather Humphreys. As a glossy 250-page book rolled off the printers in the heart of Dublin 2 and the capital begun to stir to life, Budget Day 2024 was underway.

While the budget sucks up much of the oxygen of the political and media cycle for weeks in advance of its publication, the process of pulling it together has become a year-round endeavour, starting with the Stability Programme Update in April, which sets out the macroeconomic and fiscal forecasts for the short and medium term, running into the National Economic Dialogue — a stakeholder event in Dublin Castle — in June, and the Summer Economic Statement in July, which sets out the parameters of the budget in overall terms.

But those milestones notwithstanding, the real work of the budget begins in early September, with about six weeks to go, when individual departments begin to put together their wishlists for the Department of Public Expenditure. While much is made of the bilateral meetings between ministers, those at Cabinet don't generally meet to thrash out the specifics until about 10 days before budget day with officials doing much of the work beforehand. Within the departments, around five weeks prior to the budget there are weekly meetings of officials from Finance & Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) to discuss preparations which plan the logistics and contingency planning in the event of printer failure for printing the documents, cover design, and social media campaigns.

Hammering out deals

That's not to say that everything is squared away before the ministerial pow-wows. In fact, sources familiar with the process say that oftentimes, the bilateral is used to hammer out a deal. These bilaterals, however, are not the only chance ministers get to make their cases, as there is near-constant phone and email contact as the deadline looms to get the printers running.

That experience of meetings with the "money ministers" varies from department to department, but sources noted that this year was "strange" due to the rotation of roles by Mr McGrath and Mr Donohoe and the late warnings of financial headwinds approaching.

"(McGrath) last year almost had your budget agreed before you met, with Paschal this year it felt like there was more difficult conversations with even the smaller departments."

One source said that Mr McGrath was "very savvy" in his handling of the budget, labelling him "a Taoiseach in waiting" for how he navigated the process in his first time as Finance Minister.

'Some people hold out'

While much of the focus is on the tax side of the budget, controlled from Finance, the allocations to each department are made by Public Expenditure.

"DPER is the gritty, granular one," a source says.

"Most of the negotiation takes place in there because it's an allocations department."

That negotiation can be tense, with party and coalition colleagues clashing over individual items and their overall allocation. What it all comes down to is settling.

"DPER wants departments to settle early," says a high-level source "But some people hold out".

That holding out is a risk, as ministers run the risk of getting less than they'd hoped for or clashing with Cabinet colleagues. It's understood that the last two holdouts this year were Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman, who fought for a further cut to creche fees, and Ms Humphreys, whose package included a €12 a week increase in core social welfare rates.

"Holding out is a gamble," says one high-level source "You're banking on your own party leader agreeing with when it gets escalated". Which means that knowing what your party leader will and won't fight for is key.

"All of the leaders are clear on what they want. They can be very transparent both publicly and in private."

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The tripartite nature of this coalition adds a dimension to discussions that would eliminate the possibility of any real surprises. No chance, then, of a McCreevey-esque decentralisation plan dropping on Cabinet the morning of. Sources say that the three party leaders are looped in on discussions early and that the Monday evening government co-ordination meetings took on a "heavy money focus" in recent weeks.

That work culminated with two meetings between Leo Varadkar, Micheál Martin, Eamon Ryan, and the money men on Sunday evening and Monday night as the final documents were nailed down as the three memos for Cabinet were prepared: the overall Finance Bill, legislation underpinning the Future Ireland Fund and the wider Budget memo and the months of kite-flying and speculation and intense discussion is done.

From there, the two money ministers head into a whirlwind of a Cabinet meeting, photoshoot with the budget books, Dáil statements and a press conference. Indeed, after Wednesday's RTÉ radio phone-in, Mr Donohoe headed to Dublin Airport, bound for IMF meetings in Marrakech. Both he and Mr McGrath will head to Luxembourg on Sunday for a Eurogroup summit.

When they return, they begin the work of passing the Finance Bill itself through the Dáil on Tuesday.

As one person involved in the process says:"People think the budget is a finish line, but it's just the start of the work."