"72% agree that the Budget is at risk of repeating past mistakes"

This is a very interesting survey in the Sindo



Around 1,400 respondents told us what they thought of the Budget in a single word. While some were positively predisposed towards it, far more were not.

Some of the most popular terms to describe it included “bribery”, “giveaway”, “wasteful” and “reckless”. Many referenced the past, with one respondent declaring it to be “Bertienomics”.

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Another indication that the electorate were not at all convinced by the Budget measures was our finding that 72pc agreed with the watchdog Ifac’s pointed criticism, namely that the Government has put the country at risk of “repeating past mistakes”.

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When asked if they were in favour of, or opposed to, the Government’s approach to spending, 50pc were against, with only 32pc supportive and 18pc unsure.
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The problem is that while one might disapprove of the irresponsible budgeting, not one TD or Senator has called for more responsible budgeting so if you want to protest against the Budget, which party do you vote for? The others would be even more irresponsible.

The government parties are on or around 50% in a variety of recent polls, and they received a combined 49.6% of the FPV at the local elections. The other 50% are voting for parties that either demand more or the same spent in different ways.

On the one hand you could say that the fiscally prudent voter has nowhere to go. On the other hand, the parties perhaps have it sussed that what the Irish electorate say out loud and what they do in the privacy of the voting booth are quite different.

Its the double welfare and child benefit payments that the large majority see as reckless however very few see the tax cuts as reckless because the average wage worker is paying alot more tax now than they were during the celtic tiger years. The fundamental problem in the economy is that work is not rewarded like it should be and like it was during celtic tiger years, thats why they can't deliver 70,000 new houses like they could back then

Brendan Burgess said:

not one TD or Senator has called for more responsible budgeting so if you want to protest against the Budget, which party do you vote for?

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Exactly the same in 2005-2007 which in hindsight was reckless public spending growth. Opposition wanted to spend even more!

When being blamed for the economic crash it was pointed out that those in the back seat , that is the opposition, were saying go faster , spend more , while our economy was heading for the edge of the cliff.

I suppose, in their favour, the cost of living payments aren’t recurring, which is smart, and we should remember that income tax is still higher than it was pre-crash. The government has run with this “€70,000 and over gets nothing extra” approach so where exactly is the recklessness?

The commentariat seem to want to whinge no matter what. What do they want? Tax increases? Not to allocate the €1.2bn from the AIB sale to housing?

Even the Children’s Hospital thing has been hijacked by naysayers. Yes, it’s overrun. My house overran. A lot of projects do. This country was prehistoric 50 years ago and was at the mercy of the IMF 12 years ago. Now we’re about to finish a state of the art children’s hospital to look after our nation’s kids for the next 100 years. It’s a great news story. So it went over! Nearly everything does!