An Election Budget??...yes I think so.

The 2025 budget announced by the Government recently appears to have attempted to give a little to everyone..    except the  tourism and hotel and catering industries.

Concerns about such giveaway budgets include the potential for inflationary pressures and the lack of a systemic and sustainable shift in the balance of wealth distribution within the economy.

The ESRI has stated that the budget will not do anything to decrease overall levels of poverty and I tend to agree. Many of the measures are not targeted and I don’t know if it is a lack of understanding or a lack of willingness to target what are obviously difficult political and legal questions around targeting the monies where needed most.

A number of the initiatives, such as free school books, free school meals, extra children's allowance payments etc are available to the children of multi-millionaires as well as to the children of a homeless person. While I am far from a socialist I feel this is an unnecessary boost to the coffers of the already relatively comfortable upper echelons of our society. I remember in the past Michael O Leary querying why his family should be in receipt of children’s allowance payments at the same level as the poorest in society. Surely such payments must be means tested??

Okay so no one wants to single out a child in a class for a free meal while those around them bring in their own but surely there must be a better way of targeting these payments. Equally no one in a class will know whether Johnny sitting beside him paid for his books or got them by means of a voucher system of some kind.

For Heather Humphreys to say that if people don’t want the extra childrens allowance payments they can give it back has to rank as one of the most ridiculous cases of a politician throwing their toys out of the pram that I have seen in many years. Her job is to find a way to means test the payment and target it where needed. If she hasn’t seen too many millionaires getting the payment then she won’t miss too many votes if she takes it off them !

I find there is a lamentable overall lack of willingness to move the status quo in matters such as this amongst our senior politicians.

Regarding the inflationary pressures created by the budget . If not inflationary pressure then definitely a severe lack of deflationary pressure.

For example with the extra fuel payments (again universal and per household so pertains to the millionaire’s main residence and holiday home in West Kerry etc from my reading of it ) surely this removes any pressure on the energy companies to reduce prices?