Mick Clifford: Are we any better off? Comparing the Coalition's first and last budgets

Part of Harry Burton's Budget 2025 front page cartoon. See the full cartoon below or on Page 1 of the 'Irish Examiner' in print or ePaper.
How was it for you? Not Tuesday’s Late Late Show giveaway, with Jack and Paschal standing in for Patrick and Gay, but the last five years of government.
There is general acceptance that the measures announced amount to the starting gun for an election campaign. The relevant ministers very generously gave us plenty of our own money. But to describe it as a budget would infer that some judicious husbandry was involved in the sums.