Battle of the Budget victors are Fine Gael

FINE Gael won the Battle of the Budget through its concentration on the ‘squeezed middle’ – despite late Labour demands for rent certainty and a crusade against homelessness.

The proof of the pudding was Enda Kenny’s appearance on the Nine O’Clock News last night, when he called on the private sector to address the ‘fractured construction sector,’ having resisted proposals for an end to local authority development levies in order to boost construction.

Labour won increases in child benefit, the old age pension and managed to restore the Christmas bonus and the Respite Care Grant, as well as securing a reduction to the parent-teacher ratio.

However welfare hikes are famously not as directly appreciated as tax concessions by the recipients.

The grey vote, for example, will likely vote for the parties they have traditionally supported, rather than responding with targeted gratitude for a €3-a-week fillip.

Meanwhile the new €550 tax credit for the self-employed is a Fine Gael victory for its publican, small trader and farmer base – since the latter are also considered self-employed.

Another win for Fine Gael is the reduction in the marginal tax rate below 50 per cent for the first time since April 2009.

The welfare increases won by Labour also stood as small beer when set against the measures taken under Fine Gael’s declared party policy of Making Work Pay.

Justifying the ideology behind that drive, the Taoiseach said on TV last night: ‘Everybody you take off the unemployment list is a €20,000 saving to the Exchequer.’

Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Ruth Coppinger claimed Labour had colluded in the ‘type of recovery’ which Fine Gael was intent on building.

‘This Budget throws scraps off the table to workers, young people and the poor,’ she said targeting Joan Burton’s party.