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John Walsh: No budget can ever fulfil public’s great expectations

In tackling the big beasts of housing and health, any future Sinn Féin government will find its war chest pinched by shrinking corporate receipts and the new Future Ireland fund

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald with finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty, spokesperson on Housing Eoin Ó Broin and spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform Rose Conway-Walsh. The party has staked its reputation on being all things to all people, which increases the weight of expectation among voters. Picture: Fergal Phillips

When Michael Noonan stood up in the Dáil chamber on December 6, 2011 to deliver Fine Gael’s first budget following its biggest ever seat haul in the general election at the start of that year, the circumstances could not have been more different from those of the previous time the party was in government.

The Fine Gael-Labour coalition from 1994 to 1997 presided over a period of unprecedented growth that became known as the Celtic ...