Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

It is important because we had an individual whose job it was to be the director of elections of that campaign and who was also at the time expected to produce a budget. That individual, and the truth be known, went through a serious crisis while trying to introduce a budget. That is a mistake. It is a mistake in relation to making sure that this issue of budgetary development is so important. It should have the full attention of an individual and not what has happened over the past number of weeks.

In many ways, this is a post-election budget. Budgets are usually designed to fit the economic cycle, but what we are seeing here is a budget that is suiting the electoral cycle. This time last year, we were all listening to all the different promises of a giveaway budget but here we see retrenchment in the Government's budgetary plans. Basically, there is no need to spend because they got the votes that were necessary to get them into these leather seats-----

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