How to buy an election

Every budget is at once an exercise in fiscal planning and vote management. Thanks to a record surplus of €25 billion and the fact of an imminent general election, Budget 2025 is likely to be shaped by an imperative that sounds something like this: how to give the most money to the largest number of reliable voters without the outward appearance of reckless profligacy?
What makes for good politics is seldom what results in sound long-term planning or value for money, of course. It’s a theme taken up in our editorial on the budget, which points out that this Government has already overseen a 50 per cent increase in spending but is still running to catch up with demand in housing, infrastructure, healthcare and schools. In his column, Cliff Taylor argues that the State needs to be cautious, given a heavy reliance on a few big corporations, while investing in the future through better public services. “A mindset change is needed,” he writes. “Ireland has the money – spending it well is the challenge.”
Everyone is likely to be better off to some degree after the budget. Jennifer Bray and Cormac McQuinn have a useful summary of what we know ahead of Tuesday’s set-piece, while Jack Horgan-Jones and Cormac break it down by population group. Inheritance tax, the universal social charge, schoolbooks, pensions, VAT and those now-annual “once-off payments” – it’s all there.
On irishtimes.com this week we’ll have extensive up-to-the minute coverage of the budget – what’s in it, what’s not, and what it means for you and for the country.
The domestic news agenda has been dominated this week by examples of wasteful public spending. Stories about the Leinster House bike shed or the Department of Finance’s security hut are small on their own, but together they provide real insights into how things work (or don’t). This weekend, Martin Wall has a story about tensions between the Government and the new media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, over governance, independence – and a €2 million tender for office furniture.
Our Crime and Security Correspondent Conor Gallagher got a rare glimpse this week into the work of the Border Management Unit, which has been given more power and resources to deal with irregular migration and people-smuggling through Dublin Airport. So far this year, 220 people have been charged with failing to produce a passport and 80 have been jailed.
We’re entering the final few weeks of the US presidential election, and our Washington Correspondent, Keith Duggan, has been on the road, telling stories from a bitterly divided country. This week he was in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state that will go a long way to deciding whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump becomes the next president. It’s a rich and rewarding read. While there, Keith stopped off at the town of Centralia – or what used to be Centralia. A graveyard full of Irish names is all that remains of this once-thriving, pretty town, slowly consumed by a 50-year fire.
Irish barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh came to prominence earlier this year when she stood before the International Court of Justice in the Hague, presenting South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide. In an interview with Mary Carolan, Ní Ghrálaigh tells of the influence of her Irish identity as she grew up in London, and the lesson she learned from her Dublin-born mother, who encouraged her to “do something about it” when she perceived injustice in the world.
Elsewhere, I recommend this poised and reflective essay by Laura Kennedy on her experience of being diagnosed with autism at 34.
In this weekend’s Magazine, section editor Nadine O’Regan invited a number of student journalists in as guest editors. Among the features they produced is a collection of letters from student leaders to national politicians, articulating some of the concerns of their generation.
“Many students plan to emigrate before the next election,” Kate Henshaw warns Simon Harris. “I urge you to support improvements to third-level funding,” Tess O’Regan implores Micheál Martin. “How would you make things different?,” Jenny Maguire asks Mary-Lou McDonald, for undergraduates who can’t find places to live, for postgrads who can’t avail of maternity leave, and for transgender students like Jenny herself.
Ever wondered how to become “an influencer”? Comedian, musician and podcaster Garron Noone has no advice for you. What he has is an engrossing personal story that he shares with Patrick Freyne. Garron suffered personal trauma, panic attacks and academic difficulties in his teenage years, but has found fulfilment in work that he loves.
Finally, a High Court judge was given a rap on the knuckles by the Court of Appeal this week for using slang and common colloquialisms (“Mordor”, “gaslighting”) in a judgment. Our editorial fully endorses this clampdown on engaging writing, reminding us that the Irish judiciary has a proud tradition of long, turgid and repetitive judgments “written in prose that aspires to the rhetorical heights of a Wikipedia entry.” Any slippage could have a dangerous wider fallout. “If the law can be explained in a way non-lawyers can understand – if it is to be made, to adopt a faddish recent coinage, accessible – people might wonder what exactly they are paying mad money to lawyers for in the first place.”
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
Editor
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