The battle to convert a giveaway budget to electoral success

The full details of Budget 2025 are still emerging but it is now clear that much of the government’s 2.2 billion euro spending package was leaked in advance of Ministers Jack Chambers and Paschal Donohoe taking to the floor yesterday.
Where once a minister could be sacked for revealing details of the budget ahead of time, in more recent years it has become the norm to have headline measures in the public domain beforehand.
Political editor, Pat Leahy, attributes that change to the political need for competing parties to ‘own’ their particular wins and publicise them before the general election is called.
He believes a coherent narrative is now needed to convert the bonanza into an election success, cautioning a public positively disposed to this year’s budget will not automatically mean a win at the polls.
Political correspondent, Jennifer Bray, analyses Chambers’ performance and the opposition’s line of attack while former senior government advisor, Gerard Howlin, explores the crystallising cultural change that will make it hard for the next government to rein in spending.