Between posturing, leaks, spin and counter briefings, the budget has become a game of political chess.
Budget morning starts early in the Dáil canteen where politicians, journalists and Oireachtas staff all fuel themselves up for the long day ahead with the traditional ‘big budget fry’.
Tradition is important. The budget is one of the big set pieces in the political calendar and as well as ensuring bellies are full going into the Dáil chamber, Natalie, Donna, Julie and the other canteen staff dig out the tinsel and serve up turkey and ham with all the festive trimmings later in the day. Like many customs it may seem strange, but budget day wouldn’t be complete without Christmas dinner.
This year, more than others, it very much feels like Santa has come early, with his ministerial helpers throwing out once-off payments, bonus supports and other pre-election goodies, most of which had been very well flagged in advance.
With an election very much on the horizon, there was less covert leaking and more widespread briefing as each Government party tried to sell their own wins.
It’s a far cry from 2003 when then Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy managed to keep plans to relocate 10,300 civil servants from Dublin to 53 new offices around the county under wraps.
McCreevy’s decentralisation grand plan, which also came in a pre-election cycle, caught the opposition — and most of those workers who would be directly impacted by the change — completely off-guard. Writing in just days after the announcement, Fergus Finlay reported that the heads of government departments most affected by the moves were only told about 48 hours beforehand and, “as I understand it, some of them have been in a state of shock ever since”.
In stepping down, Mr Hogan said the release of a three-page statement to two evening newspapers four hours before the then finance minister Ruairí Quinn’s budget speech had been a genuine error. He said he had a one-page press release on the budget prepared at 11.45am, along with a two-page summary to be used in a 6.30pm briefing for members of the Fine Gael parliamentary party.
However, because of the pressure of time, he accepted he failed to give full instruction to his political adviser that the pages were to be kept separate and released only after Mr Quinn sat down.
For journalists currently working in Leinster House, budget day is the culmination of many months of speculation which seems to begin earlier and earlier each year.
This week the deputy political editor Paul Hosford broke the record by a significant margin when just hours after Budget 2025 had been announced on the floor of the Dáil he pressed Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe on whether once-off payments would form part of Budget 2026.
Raising kites during the long quiet days of summer has become a tactic deployed to gain publicity, but one which occasionally can backfire.
In opposition, Willie O’Dea perfected this approach with the ‘fiver flyer’, demanding that pensioners see weekly supports increased.
But more recently, a call for €1,000 tax cuts made by three Fine Gael junior ministers in 2023 caused a coalition rift.
This year, as Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe and Finance Minister Jack Chambers got into crunch bilateral meetings with their fellow Cabinet ministers the slow release of details began to pick up pace.
With minds firmly focused on the electorate, briefings placed a particular emphasis on party gains.
The extension of the help-to-buy scheme out to 2029 was framed as an item that had been tabled by Minister for Finance Jack Chambers.
Journalists were reminded that the reduction of USC from 4% to 3% was very much “a priority for Fianna Fáil”.
Others were clear in insisting that the increase in the inheritance tax threshold to €400,000 was a measure that Fine Gael had been solidly pushing for many months, and it was a priority that had been raised by backbenchers at the weekly meetings of the parliamentary party.
The Green Party, which throughout the lifetime of this coalition has been less interested in self-promotion than the coalition partners, also got PR savvy.
The once-off ‘baby bonus’ to be paid out to new parents was a measure championed by Roderic O’Gorman in negotiations.
It was made known that the Greens had pushed back against a move to increase social protection payments by different amounts as had been touted by Minister Heather Humphreys.
As the spinning began to spiral, Tánaiste Micheál Martin came out to say that a €15 increase for pensioners and a lesser amount for the unemployed was never proposed let alone considered and instead a universal uplift of €12 had been “stitched in” since the summer.
“I’m bemused by the entire thing. I’m reading in newspaper reports about €15,” Mr Martin said.
“It was never €15 that was tabled, ever, in any meeting that I attended. The Summer Economic Statement gave the overall expenditure framework. Go back to that and you see that clearly a €12 increase in the pension is stitched into that.
“Nothing has changed since then. There’s been no attempt to change that.”
Similar claims were made of Enterprise Minister Peter Burke, who insisted right to the end of negotiations that a reduction in the VAT rate for the hospitality sector was a measure that he was still very much fighting for.
But others in the coalition moved to clarify that any changes on VAT had been ruled out long in advance of this week.
By Tuesday morning, when Ministers were heading into Cabinet to sign off on Budget 2025, it felt like there was nothing left to reveal or to spin.
But in keeping with tradition, journalists waited directly outside the Chamber to be handed the official budget books from Department of Finance staff as Minister Chambers got to his feet in the Dáil at 1pm.
The rules, which date back to an era when the Dáil was truly the place where a budget was announced, dictate that books cannot be handed out and must not be taken out of the gallery until both money Ministers finish speaking.
Given the level of leaking this year, it was almost comical that one TD leaving the Dáil chamber early was made remove his copy of the budget book from a satchel and hand it over.
