Budget 2022: RTÉ appearance to show if coalition really delivered something for everyone in the audience

Budget 2022 featured income tax cuts, social welfare increases and a large rise in spending in health, education and childcare. But there is always the risk of a public backlash against one of the smaller measures

A good test of the public mood will come when Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Finance, and Michael McGrath, the Minister for Public Expenditure, appear on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne show in the morning for the traditional budget questions and answers session from callers.

Heather Humphreys is a firm believer in people having a “hot meal in the middle of the day”.

We know this because the Minister for Social Protection mentioned it while highlighting plans to expand the hot school meals programme in disadvantaged schools.

The €588 million social welfare package in Budget 2022 involved the “largest increase in 14 years”, the minister said and one of the key developments in her department helped to create the fiscal ...