Alternative Budget Day is like the boxing undercard on a big fight night: a series of minor bouts before the main event.
Billuns and Billuns Day.
If Only We Were In Charge Day.
Look at What You’re Missing Day.
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People were afraid to look sideways for fear of getting a belt from one of the various submissions flying around the place. Visions everywhere.
Pages upon pages of proposals piled up for the Government to ignore. Followed by pages upon pages of proposals from Sinn Féin for the Government to fine-comb for attack.
Two launches happened midmorning in quick succession on the plinth.
The Social Democrats were out first, “Unlocking the Future”.
Former leader Róisín Shortall did the honours because leader Holly Cairns was indisposed.
They were swiftly followed by the Rural Independents’ “Prioritising People in Budget 2024 – The Rural TDs’ Vision”.
Lovely documents produced by both parties, although the Soc Dems just edged it over the Roaring Independents for front-cover impact. The RIG opted for a sequence of photographs of rural beauty spots (including a thatched cottage). Their urban counterparts featured a photo of a pensive-looking baby holding on to a grab-rail on the Dart.
Sinn Féin didn’t want to be constricted by the stuffy confines of Leinster House and the inability to pack the plinth with politicians, props and podiums.
Party leader Mary Lou McDonald and finance spokesman Pearse Doherty took everyone off campus for a few hours to the headquarters of the Communications Workers Union in the shadow of Croke Park on the North Circular Road, recording a quick YouTube video with the rest of the front bench spokespeople before the lunch.
Inside, it was a four-podium affair. They mean business.
Labour was keeping its powder dry and keeping off the plinth. The party launches its Alternative Budget on Thursday at lunchtime in its Aungier Street headquarters.
The published fiscal aspirations of Opposition parties provide a solid warm-up session for number-crunchers and analysts in the run-up to next week’s budget statement when all the Government kites have been flown and material is needed to fill the wasteland between now and lunchtime on Tuesday.
In the Coalition bunker – or in the bowels of Fine Gael, to be precise – staffers have been up to their eyes all week punching holes in Sinn Féin’s early budget claims. When the party released its full list of proposals on Wednesday afternoon, FG spokespeople lined up to savage it.
The launch hadn’t even started when the statements began pumping out.
The inundation began with Minister of State Peter Burke, castigating “Sinn Féin’s punishing new taxes for workers, families and businesses”.
Followed by a statement from Wexford’s Paul Kehoe. “SF can’t do their maths and will punish third-level students”. The party was plucking numbers out of the sky, according to the former junior minister.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
The phone was taking terrible punishment.
It’ll be a miracle if Mary Lou and Co manage to get to next Tuesday without recycling the line she often throws at the Taoiseach about Sinn Féin living rent-free in Fine Gael’s head
Oh, here’s Alan Farrell. “Sinn Féin punish those most in need of warmer homes.”
And the ever faithful Damien English: “SF punish public servants in need of pay increases.”
Senator Garret Ahern was game. “SF will punish Irish-owned businesses.”
Senator John Cummins took up the baton. “Sinn Féin wants to punish young people by doubling stamp duty and scrapping vital supports – a double whammy for first time buyers.”
How fine was Fine Gael’s fine-tooth comb? Someone was meticulous enough to spot an error in a line on page 46 of the Sinn Féin document, which proposed increasing stamp duty on residential home values above “€70,000 and €1million”.
John Cummins pointed this out in his missive. “It beggars belief.”
It seems that Sinn Féin was paying more attention to the outpourings of Fine Gael than the intended recipients of this 30-minute barrage. The figure was corrected to €700,000 in the online version of the document.
“They’re changing stuff all the time as we point out the errors,” crowed a triumphant adviser.
It’ll be a miracle if Mary Lou and Co manage to get to next Tuesday without recycling the line she often throws at the Taoiseach about Sinn Féin living rent-free in Fine Gael’s head.
But there was far less interest in the minutiae of the Shinners’ alternative statement from other quarters.
Could this be because post-election options are a consideration in another corner of the Coalition?
Earlier in the day, Leaders’ Questions provided a brief break from the budget undercard but no rest from pugnacious performances. There is rarely a shortage of Raging Bull where Leo and Mary Lou are concerned.
Throwing political digs about student digs, they went toe to toe on the third-level accommodation crisis on the day of the students’ big protest march on the Dáil.
She pressed forward with charges that his Government shows “no urgency, no pace, no ambition” in its attempts to improve the situation and stem the exodus of graduates from the country.
He countered with figures on the increased number of beds provided by third-level institutions and private sector companies in the last year and said a further 8,000 units are under construction.
“So what you’re calling for us to do, deputy, is already well under way. It’s happening before your eyes if you care to open them.”
“My eyes are wide open, Taoiseach. And listening to you, you’d imagine there is no problem at all,” she tartly replied.
“According to you, Leo Varadkar, it’s all going to plan.”
He hit back because, to be fair, Mary Lou was below the belt with some of her comments. Hadn’t he acknowledged in his first reply that there is a problem for students who need accommodation as it can be hard to find and too expensive?
“Why did you seek to misrepresent what I said? Why did you seek to put words in my mouth?”
Leo wasn’t seeking a reply. He had one in his locker of shots, ready to go.
“Because you are the Great Misleader, deputy McDonald.”
Ooof!
He accused her of pushing the narrative of “a mass one-way exodus” of young people from this country when the truth doesn’t bear this out.
Over the decades, countless Irish men and women went abroad in search of work and never returned home. In the past three years, 80,000 left, many of them young people. But guess what? 90,000 came back.
“Why will you never say that?”
The Taoiseach sounded frustrated.
“Because you don’t want people to know the truth!”
Portobello’s answer to Jack Nicholson.
Clear a space for the Oscar.
