Michael McGrath defends budget approach after scathing Ifac criticism

Michael McGrath has defended the government’s approach to this year’s budget saying the “right balance” had been struck following scathing criticism from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) on Thursday.

The finance minister was responding to a highly-critical paper published by the council which accused the government of “fiscal gimmickry” by dressing up permanent spending measures as once-off in nature.

Ifac said the recent €14 billion budget package was “mostly untargeted” and that the government’s ...