Inside the budget negotiations

With so many claimants wanting chunks of the fiscal pie, negotiations on Budget 2017 went right to the wire

Michael Noonan and Paschal Donohoe at a post-budget press conference last Tuesday Picture: Maura Hickey

Negotiations on the final night before the budget were dragging on in Government Buildings - and the Independent Alliance ministers were getting hungry. After returning from a tactical break, they found two pizza boxes had been left on the table of their meeting room - with a knife.

Transport minister Shane Ross didn’t like the pizzas inside. But his colleagues Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, Finian McGrath and Sean Canney all tucked in.

When the ...