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13 October 2016

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Budget Bingo’s fiver a week for all

“What will €1billion buy you?”

“Five ways we’re richer after Budget 2017.”

“Landlords disappointed despite longed-for tax break.”

THESE were some of the headlines from the online news-feeds of Newstalk, the Irish Independent and the Irish Times respectively on Budget day in Dublin – a mix of the flippant and the bizarre.

Newstalk had a “Budget Bingo” game on their Twitter feed, the idea being you listened to the Budget and used their bingo card to see if Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Expenditure & Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe used terms like “Brexit proof”, “fiscal space” or “awkward pop culture reference”.

If the online news providers were offering live blanket coverage of the Budget announcements, RTÉ were going further with a media blitz, including the obligatory rolling online updates, live radio and TV broadcasts with pundits not just in Montrose but also in the Dáil studio, across Kildare Street in Buswells Hotel, and other locations around the country.

RTÉ’s Budget coverage was all the more impressive as a quick flick to TV3 showed them running repeats of Xposé and a double helping of Judge Judy. For a moment you could clearly see where some of the licence fee goes. Prime Time even had a live audience. Stick that in your Pat Kenny Tonight.

“Thank you for calling in with your question”, repeated Paschal Donohoe as he and Michael Noonan participated in the now traditional RTÉ Radio 1 ‘day after’ grilling of the Finance and Public Expenditure ministers. No matter how much Paschal thanked questioners, neither he nor Noonan couldn’t escape the range of inequalities highlighted by listeners in the Budget provisions.

This was good radio.

One killer point by Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ was when he named ten economists and industry groups who opposed the new First-Time Buyer’s Grant, asking Finance Minister Noonan why only he and Construction Industry Federation Director Tom Parlon (a leading Progressive Democrats TD in his previously overtly political life) supported the package.

Noonan, predictably, fudged his response.

O’Rourke was in stark contrast to Morning Ireland’s Cathal Mac Coille. He demanded that Independent TD Stephen Donnelly begin his Budget response “just for fun, highlight the things that you like in this Budget”. It echoed a theme in the previous night’s Prime Time Budget broadcast where David McCullagh told Pearse Doherty that the Sinn Féin TD would “have to agree” that he welcomed aspects of the Budget.

Mac Coille and McCullagh were promoting the idea that the Budget is an entertainment show, so roll out the puns and hype. Conor Pope’s “A little something for everyone in the audience” (highlighted on the front page of the Irish Times) captured this mood.

Media coverage of Fine Gael, Independent Alliance and Fianna Fáil had an element of a reverse murder mystery with everyone claiming they did it when it came to the €1.33billion in increased spending and tax cuts (just 10% of the unpaid Apple taxes, by the way). The Irish Times reported how both Mícheál Martin and Shane Ross were claiming credit for the spending increases.

It was a Budget coverage of winners and losers.

“Self-employed among the main winners” was the headline of the Irish Times’s 16-page Budget Supplement.

“Pint for everyone” was the Star’s headline, based on the calculation that “The people of Ireland will be richer by just the price of a pint next year.”

This was “a few extra quid pocket money” said The Irish Sun.

It was a Budget “worth €5 a week to workers and pensioners” observed the Irish Independent.

The Star carried a picture of a squinting Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty under the words “Wimp Claim”, focusing on the Donegal deputy’s anger at the initial refusal of Michael Noonan to appear on RTÉ’s Prime Time Budget Special with him.

The Irish Sun front page – with the faces of Paschal Donohoe and Michael Noonan photoshopped onto the bodies of Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry – headlined “Great Irish Take Off”. It strained the TV baking analogy to its limits with subheads “Govt dishes out giveaways to keep voters and Fianna Fáil sweet” and “But dough is spread too thin to rise to expectations”.

“House that for a bonus” was the Mirror headline on the €20,000 rebate for first-time buyers.

The Herald was one of the few papers to give a negative review of the Budget, highlighting the families overlooked by the childcare measures.

Budget 2016 – Herald

In the same paper, however, columnist and PR consultant Terry Prone’s sugar-coated analysis was headlined: “First Budget in history of the state with no bad news in it”.

“The really good news is that a minority government made up of one big party and a bunch of individuals with radically different viewpoints can deal in a civilised way with each other,” Ms Prone cooed. “They can deliver the goods and in the process provide stability at a time when stability is the single factor that can keep the economy motoring in the challenging times ahead.”

Ms Prone’s Communications Clinic has included among its clients Fine Gael. It’s not clear if the family PR firm still represents Fine Gael. If Fine Gael isn’t paying Ms Prone as a spin doctor, it should.

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