Gavan Reilly: The nine things they don’t tell you about Budget Day

For the seventh year, this column falls victim to the unfortunate timing of Budget Day – where the details will be officially announced sometime between me writing these words, and you reading them. So rather than run the risk of analysing measures that don’t get announced, and missing the ones that do, let’s take a peek behind the curtain and see how Budget Day really goes down.

1. The leaking is built into the system

They can’t help themselves but the system is hard-wired this way. Yes, we all know that Phil Hogan resigned in 1995 when an advisor faxed out some details of the Budget ahead of the official announcements. But in the austerity era, kite-flying became a political imperative – figuring out how you could possibly cut billions in spending while doing as little damage as possible to social fabric. Once you turn the leaky tap on, you can’t stop it again: now there’s so much good news, ministers need to eke out their own corner of the media cycle.

2. It’s always done late in the day

Of course it is. In an ideal world you wouldn’t have late night talks the day before you’re trying to publish a massive tranche of documents outlining the intricacies of tax and spending policies to the world. But it couldn’t work any other way: if you tried to have the Budget locked down at 5pm on a Monday evening, there’d always be one minister who would hold out trying to ask for more. There’s no way for this stuff to be done other than to do some of it late, and for the printers to work overnight getting the documents made up in time.

3. The Cabinet all gets its say, then gets sidelined

You will have seen the news reports where the Taoiseach and other ministers are doorstepped on their way into the Budget day Cabinet meeting – all, ostensibly, to formally sign off on the whole kit and kaboodle. That’s true in name only: there’s simply no way for a minister to put a fly on the ointment late in the day, objecting to something in the package or seeking a late tweak to the allocations. The die is cast and the ink is literally drying on the Budget before the ministers get to sit around as a collective and officially sign off on its contents.

4. And yet, it’s the most transparent time of year

Some ministers are able to go months at a time without ever holding a press conference. I can think of one Cabinet minister who habitually tries to ignore them, and prefers occasional setpiece broadcast interviews rather than risk the mauling by a media scrum. Budget Week, though, is the one time of year where every minister is put in front of a microphone. After the speeches in the Dáil there’s a rolling series of press conferences in Government Buildings where little is off-limits and there’s nowhere to hide. If only it was like that more often.

5. Despite what you think, personalities matter

The splitting of the Department of Finance in 2011 created a new dynamic in coalition governments – and means personalities come to the fore in ways they didn’t previously. Donohoe’s own FG colleagues used to lament his prudence/parsimony (delete as appropriate) when he was on the spending side between 2016 and 2020, drawing lines through proposals that fellow ministers considered fairly modest – so much so that they loved Michael McGrath’s open-minded attitude to spending in the public good. They might miss him on the tax side.

6. The ministers are equal, but their workloads aren’t

Speaking of Michael McGrath: in relative terms, he’s had his feet up for the last few days. For the last ten years, Budgets have been consciously skewed to focus more on increasing public spending, rather than cutting taxes. That means the changes to tax policy are relatively straightforward: tweak a tax band here, cut a rate there, introduce an exemption or two, and suddenly the job is largely done. It’s Donohoe, on the spending side, who has more decisions to make – and who therefore has to juggle the many demands from other ministers.

7. The media cycle is getting shorter and shorter

This week marks my 14th Budget as a journalist, and my 11th working in Leinster House. One notable thing is how much shorter each Budget’s shelf-life is. My first Budget was December 2010 when the fallout was felt for weeks and cast a long shadow over the General Election that followed. By October 2013, my first in Leinster House, I vividly remember the surprise among the media when the news cycle had moved on two days later. Two years ago new advice from NPHET knocked the Budget off the top of the agenda on Budget Day itself!

8. It’s all hectic… until it’s not

This point is true only for journalists in broadcasting, like myself: after the speeches are finished and the documentation is out, the bulk of the job is done. We psyche ourselves up for weeks to get ready for Budget Day as if it’s a marathon when in truth, Budget Day is not so much ‘busy’ as ‘long’. Any news that hasn’t already leaked in advance, is out by 2:30pm – the rest of the day is an exercise in trying to tell its story as concisely as possible. The work really then falls to my colleagues outside of Leinster House talking to stakeholders and gauging their opinions.

9. Yes, they do genuinely debate what ties to wear

One of the classic Budget Day novelty bets is the colour of necktie being worn by the Minister for Finance – a game slightly ruined under Paschal Donohoe’s tenure, who gathered an amazing collection of green ties during his time as tourism minister. But the tie is chosen carefully: anything with a small chequered pattern will ‘strobe’ on TV, while certain colours might clash unfavourably with the covers of the Budget-branded documents in photos. The tie you see them wearing on the way into work may not be the one you’ll see during the speech!