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We can add a new crisis to our existing Covid-19 and Brexit problems. This new one is a crisis of superlatives since we ran out of the different ways of saying “the greatest”, “the most”, “the greatest” and “a record”.
The staggering € 17 billion spending increases by 2021, and concern over Covid-19 and a new Brexit cliff, also masked the clearest evidence yet of a significant shift in our political landscape.
For the first time ever, a Fine Gael minister and a Fianna Fáil combined to present the 2021 Budget. So we saw real proof that we are now in a vastly changed political era.
Let us also remember that we are a few weeks away from the tenth anniversary of the last time a minister from Fianna Fáil presented a budget. That was on December 7, 2010 when Brian Lenihan presented the final act of the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition before the political Armageddon of both parties in the February 2011 general election.
The other great reminder of the change of political order came when Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty was the first to rise from the opposition seats to attack. This was a tougher budget to attack than usual, unless you’re a chain smoker shopping for a new SUV engine.
But Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman did not miss a beat when he went on the offensive, reminding us that retirees don’t get the extra $ 5 a week, according to several recent budgets.
Mr. Doherty made it clear that his party would have triumphed with the five retiree bill, and they would have reinstated the recent cuts in Pandemic Unemployment Payments (PUPs) that his party still deplored. The deputy director of Sinn Féin went on to fulfill his opposition duty and denounced the 2021 Budget.
Speaking to reporters, Doherty’s colleague Louise O’Reilly found a shred of weakness when she criticized the lack of something special about childcare.
Similarly, Róisín Shortall, co-director of the Social Democrats, said that the additional 4 billion euros for health has been distributed everywhere and can achieve little in the long-term reforms of the system.
Ms. Shortall also argued that the goals for affordable housing lacked ambition. Arguably all of these were legitimate criticisms.
But the reality is that there were few or no fireworks, as both ministers stayed for about 45 minutes each to offer a comprehensive summary of spending in their own areas in pretty practical tones.
We lost count of the number of times each cited “messages of hope” and both ministers also emphasized the need for realism as we all face an unprecedented global Covid-19 pandemic, the scope of which is totally unknown at this time.
The “sin taxes” were actually capped at an extra 50 cents on cigarettes, bringing his now-unpopular 20-cigarette pack to 14 euros. The carbon tax means that anyone who doesn’t get to the pumps before midnight will pay an extra two cents per liter for gasoline and an extra two and a half cents per liter for diesel.
The changes to the car tax regime signaled a warning for drivers of older and larger vehicles, and a horn for SUV lovers. Otherwise, the impact may well be slow with, hopefully, better health and wellness services and a much larger state sector in the medium term. With that in mind, it was to some extent a ‘wait and see’ budget.
Paschal Donohoe’s only deviation toward high-sounding language came with a quote from Ireland’s most beloved poet, Séamus Heaney, while Michael McGrath cited John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech to the Dáil and the Seanad. And they both left it up late in their speeches to incorporate these mini flourishes.
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