Mick Clifford: Few left dancing in the aisles as tired budget format falls flat

'Cigarettes and vapes are up, and the third level student contribution is down by €150. And that sums up the ‘something negligible for everybody in the audience’ approach to this budget.' File picture 

The budget format has outlived its fizz. The element of surprise, the capacity to shock, the odd nugget of affluence, thrown in like a few stray grains of sugar, is no more.

There is no announcement that hasn’t already been made. It would be more honest if the ministers for finance and public expenditure simply switched things around. They could get to their feet and match each new measure with the media institution which won the scoop on it over the last few days.

They could give out Budget Awards on that basis. And in another category, award various ministers with either the Successful Kite Flying Award or the Kite That Never Took Flight gong.

Yesterday soon after 1pm Simon Harris got to his feet. The packed Dáil could have lip synched his speech, measure for measure. This was his first budget and it’s safe to say will be his last, certainly in this government. This time next year, barring economic shock or outsized scandal, he will be sitting in the Taoiseach’s seat, bored out of his mind like the rest of the government as the new minister for finance tells us what we all know already.

This budget, he portentously told the House, “sets us on a path, a place where the benefits of growth are widely shared”.

He is, however, worried about the global bond markets, which is reassuring as sometimes he gives the impression that his focus is exclusively on the next social media posting or the next election.

To be fair,  Tánaiste/minister Harris delivered the news competently in the speech and demonstrated that he has, at least, a grasp of financial matters.

Jack Chambers followed in a similar vein. He presented a hostage to fortune early on. “Whether people at home can see and feel a difference in their daily lives, that is the true measure of our success,” he said.

The smart money says that there will be very few in the immediate aftermath of this budget who will be dancing in the aisles.

The only levity was achieved when he couldn’t help himself in bigging up Mayo’s All Ireland win, a nod to his own heritage and a worrying sign that we won’t hear the end of that victory this side of 2050.

Ultimately, the success or otherwise of what was officially delivered by the two lads is captured in a question from another time, another country. Soon after signing the treaty in London, Michael Collins wrote home to a friend: “Will anybody be satisfied? Will anybody.”

The answer then was no and the answer in the wake of this budget will also be no. Last year hospitality was the cat that got all the cream, which like everything means somebody else was left shortchanged. This time around there is no one sector that would or could claim to be satisfied.

At a time of living precariously, everybody was left with a taste of more in their mouth.

The PAYE worker? If earning about the new threshold for the marginal tax rate, she will get an extra €750, or €15 a week, which could be gobbled up depending on how many missiles might land in the Strait of Hormuz the previous weekend.

Those on the minimum wage are getting an increase of 79c an hour up to €14.94. What would it have cost to round the increase to 80c or even hike the rate to €15? Is it all simply to appease employers who were forecasting dark clouds if the lowest paid get any kind of an increase?

Elsewhere the compass of the government was evident in what amounts to a surrender on the carbon tax. The increases have been stalled, as if the climate might relent and ease up because the Fine Gael leader needs some third preferences in parts of rural Ireland.

Cigarettes and vapes are up, and the third level student contribution is down by €150. And that sums up the ‘something negligible for everybody in the audience’ approach to this budget.

Reaction from the opposition was probably in line with that of the public at large.

“It’s a missed opportunity,” Independent Ireland’s Michael Fitzmaurice told RTÉ. “It’s not even going to keep people standing still.”

The Social Democrats Jennifer Whitmore was equally unimpressed. “A lot of spin, a lot of build up, a lot of kites being flown,” she said.

And yet it’s difficult to see how this budget was ever going to be a winner.

To spend too much would have been to pretend there is no tomorrow, no volatility ripping across the world.

The country’s balance sheet is doing well but large swathes of the population are not feeling it. That is a problem and will continue to be so. To that extent, this was a holding exercise and that was never going to satisfy at a time of alleged plenty.