Plodding Jack Chambers makes Paschal Donohoe sound like an unhinged Donald Trump

It’s budget day, and on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) Mary Wilson is parsing the full extent of the Government’s giveaway. Unfortunately for listeners expecting advance news of prospective goodies, however, the presenter isn’t talking about the Coalition’s budgetary plans for 2025. Rather, she’s surveying the spiralling costs of State building projects, as outlined in the annual report from the Dickensian-sounding Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Judging by what Wilson hears, any munificence shown toward the public in the budget is small beer compared with what’s on offer in State contracts.
Discussing the report’s “highlights – or lowlights” – with the chairman of the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts, Brian Stanley, Wilson learns that construction costs for small modular homes for Ukrainian refugees in Co Laois more than doubled, to €345,000, in a year. “The framework agreements are not up to standard from the taxpayer’s point of view,” the Sinn Féin TD says. “If you’re a contractor they’re brilliant.”
Such profligacy is of course in keeping with recent revelations about Leinster House bike sheds and Government Buildings security offices, but it helps explain the decidedly lukewarm reception that the biggest budget in the history of the State receives across the airwaves. True, Kieran Cuddihy congratulates Minister for Finance Jack Chambers on his first budget when he appears on The Hard Shoulder (Newstalk, weekdays), but there the pleasantries end.
Instead the host asks why the Government has exceeded the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council’s recommended limit of a 5 per cent increase in spending, by what the Minister euphemistically terms “a 1.9 per cent additionality”. “What you’re actually saying is you’ve breached your own rules,” says Cuddihy scornfully. If nothing else, the host deserves kudos for making a discussion on fiscal projections sound lively.
Moving on, Cuddihy presses Chambers on proposals that require more personnel, wondering where such people will come from in a full-capacity labour market. “Does [it] mean that a lot of today’s announcements come with a little asterisk beside them, if not a dollop of salt?” The Minister, blandly polished throughout, vaguely replies that there could be shifts in different areas of the economy that free up workers, but he sounds unconvincing. As a Dublin newsroom wag once archly observed, the Rolling Stones could play in my livingroom, but relying on such possibilities hardly seems like a strategy.
But then, while State coffers are flush with corporate tax, spraying money in all directions is an easier option than tedious long-term planning. Danny McCoy of the employers’ group Ibec suggests to Cuddihy that the budget lacks coherence: he compares the proposed spending to a monsoon, but one that “doesn’t seem to be getting it in the right buckets”.
One of the metaphorical vessels suddenly overflowing with cash comes under scrutiny on Wednesday, as Cuddihy discusses the allocation of €9 million for pouches to store students’ phones while at school. One teacher, Conor Murphy, thinks the plan is ridiculous and unnecessary, recounting how he has dealt with pupils using their devices in class: “I said, ‘Give me your phone,’ and they did.” Paul Crone of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals is similarly sceptical, noting that most schools already have common-sense policies on phone use: “I could think of a dozen other ways that €9 million would be better spent in our system.”
Amid the billions being splurged elsewhere, it might seem a minor matter for Cuddihy to cover, but the ludicrousness of the plan adds to the impression of a government indulging in heedless extravagance.
That said, having more money than sense is a problem many ministers for finance can only dream of. (Even the Torquemada-esque Mary Wilson chucklingly describes the situation as “jammy”.) Certainly, when appearing on the traditional post-budget phone-in on Today with Claire Byrne (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), the finance duo of Chambers and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe get a far easier ride than previous incumbents did during the fraught years of postcrash austerity. Although some callers have difficult personal stories – Helen laments that her daughter can neither work nor get married without losing disability benefit – most questions are from those who think their interests have been overlooked, such as the takeaway owner asking why VAT hasn’t been decreased for the hospitality sector.
Donohoe handles the bulk of the queries with smooth efficiency, expressing emollient sympathy before wheeling out exculpatory data. Chambers, largely taking a back seat, is so ploddingly anonymous that his polished Cabinet colleague sounds like an unhinged Donald Trump in comparison. Even so, both Ministers cruise through the programme largely unscathed – as well as untested by Byrne – to the point that one wonders whether this annual ritual has run its course. Certainly, with robust public finances allowing Donohoe and Chambers a Teflon complacency, the fireworks of yore are missing.
Another sign of changed times comes on Wednesday’s Newstalk Breakfast (weekdays), when Taoiseach Simon Harris is interviewed by Shane Coleman. Again, it’s not so long since taoisigh lay low while ministers for finance took the post-budget flak, but, with an election looming, Harris appears happy to play the benefactor for listeners. (For Coleman and his cohost, Ciara Kelly, the Taoiseach’s appearance has the bonus of upstaging Byrne’s phone-in.)
Coleman wonders if the Government’s largesse is wise in the light of the previous crash – “Fifteen years ago nobody shouted stop” – but Harris is unapologetic about putting money back in taxpayers’ pockets. “I’m not just running an economy, I’m running a society,” he says. Coleman conducts proceedings in thorough fashion, but any concerns about reckless spending bounce off his guest’s bulletproof confidence, as Harris moves between snappy soundbites – “My bosses are the people of Ireland” – and more considered rationales for his administration’s generosity: “It’s how you protect social cohesion.” Maybe. Just hope there’s something left in the kitty should things fall apart.