Middle ground voters want certainty from the Budget

BY lunchtime today, you’ll know how much Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe is planning to put in your back pocket next year. The minister will proclaim he is delivering a sensible Budget that is trying to do the right thing for the country and leave nobody behind. He will also point to a complicated political environment where the Government operates without a clear majority in a rag-tag Coalition dependent on the main Opposition party for survival.

And yet a second budget is almost certain to be passed by this unhappy alliance.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are pragmatic enough to realise the majority of the public care little about the ‘Punch and Judy’ show inside the bubble of Leinster House.

Likewise, they have to ignore the tribalism of their own grassroots members who are less than satisfied with a union of the Civil War parties.

The middle ground voter wants a functioning government delivering certainty for families, businesses, pensioners and those with a stake in this society.

They want to know that there will be houses and schools built next year, that social welfare payments will be made, and that the hospitals will be staffed.

Ultimately for all the bluster from those TDs who don’t vote for the measures in Budget 2018 from tonight, just remember they had their chance to step up.

They failed to take that responsibility.