Mick Clifford: Are we any better off? Comparing the Coalition's first and last budgets
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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.
In reality, the only calculation was how much per vote should go to each cohort or constituency in society.
It was all a different purse of pennies four years ago when this government delivered its first budget.
Back then, the billions on display on Tuesday were little more than a mirage, barely visible on the horizon beyond a crippling pandemic.
On October 13, 2020 then finance minister Paschal Donohoe reached for Seamus Heaney to set out a vision for the Dáil term to come, quoting the poet’s line: “If we winter this out, we can summer anywhere.”
Paschal then threw in his own literary tuppenceworth.
“So, as the evenings shorten and the leaves change colour, we re-commit ourselves to the road ahead," he said.
"I can’t say for certain how long the journey will take, but I can say that we all have roles to play; collectively and individually and as individual, for the benefit of ourselves, each other and our country.”
The stage was set for Paschal to reseat himself to the opening strains of Seán Ó Riada’s .
Instead there was a thunderclap of applause from the novel budget day chorus of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael backbenchers clapping as one.
To be fair, the government, which also included the Green Party, was starting out from a dark place. The pandemic had wreaked human and economic havoc, not to mention the trauma that would linger in some quarters.
Mr Donohoe noted that the budget deficit for 2020 was predicted to be €21.5bn. On Tuesday, a surplus of €26bn was announced. If elections were won or lost on the trajectory of the national coffers, the election to come would already be over bar the shouting. Of course Tuesday ’s lolly included the Apple tax money which the government was so reluctant to take.
The trajectory of employment through the coalition’s term is another song that they could sing from the rooftops.
In 2020, a loss of roughly 320,000 jobs was predicted on budget day.
Today, there is more or less full employment. Were the performance of the government to be judged on those two issues alone, they would be in clover.
Of course governing is about much more.
By any measure, the coalition had a good pandemic, although unlike most developed democracies we are still waiting for an inquiry into what went well and what went wrong.
Afterwards, the nature of an economy delicately propped up by a few foreign companies led to a rapid recovery. Then again, if a government is to be criticised when the big picture stuff turns sour, they are surely entitled to some credit when it flowers at the right time.
So it would appear that certain sections of the economy thrived through the years of this government once the pandemic was over. Other sections not so much but there was work for everybody.
Then along came the second wallop from beyond these shores, the cost of living crisis. Again, there was money in the coffers to lessen the blow for some sections although major questions arise as to why assistance was not most targeted at those most in need.
Where governing was less than successful was in the bugbear of society right now, housing.
In 2020, house prices were considered to be outrageous, with the average price nationally at €269,522, according to Daft.ie. This year the average price is €340,398.
Equally rent has continued on a steady upward trajectory as supply has tightened. In Dublin 2020, the average rent in Dublin was €1,745 while today it is approaching €2,400. By any standards, “solving” the housing crisis, or even putting a dent in it, has been beyond this government in their years of plenty.
So it has also gone in health. There have been incremental improvements but the blueprint agreed across the political spectrum, Sláintecare, looks as far away as ever.
An extra €3bn was allocated to health on Tuesday, but investment has not correlated well with outcomes over the term of this government.
And then there is the vision thing.
What has it been, and what is the pitch for a vision ahead of the election? Mr Donohoe’s vision in 2020 was suitably short term — to emerge from the pandemic intact as a society and attempt to rebuild.
In the interim, through the premiership of both party's leaders, there has been precious little.
When the baton changed hands from Micheál Martin to Leo Varadkar in December 2022, the new taoiseach presented a vision to “make Ireland the best country in Europe to be a child” .
He set up a dedicated unit to focus on reducing child poverty and improving wellbeing. Over the remainder of his premiership he made a few inroads here and there but ultimately there was no grand plan.
In 2023, Mr Varadkar’s only full year in office in this government, the number of children living in consistent poverty rose by 90,000, according to the Childrens’ Rights Alliance monitor. By the end of that year 3,594 children were living in emergency accommodation.
By August this year that figure had risen to 4,401.
As of now, it would appear that the only vision within government stretches to polling day and no further.
Tuesday’s giveaway certainly didn’t provide anything in that department. All of the focus, all of the goodies dispensed, were directed to the greatest extent at the roughly 60% of the electorate who are expected to vote in the general election.
In replying to the budget speeches, Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty told the Dáil that like all other budgets from this Government, spending has gone up in this one.
The question is well put, but it’s also a reality that only some are in major need, and only some are crying out as a result.
Who exactly is and whether there is sufficient support for this Government to continue as they have gone for the last five years will be revealed in the election to come.