BUDGET 2013 WILL take place over a single day this year.

Last year’s budget – the first for the Fine Gael/Labour coalition – had been delivered over two days.

A spokesperson from the Department of Finance confirmed to TheJournal.ie, however, that this year’s budget would not run beyond its date of 5 December.

Responding to the announcement, Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Finance Pearse Doherty told TheJournal.ie that he believed that Labour had “wanted their day in the limelight” last year:

The vast majority of people do not care whether the budget is announced over one day or two. Their concern is with the content of the budget and the impact it will have on their lives. People are worried whether spending cuts  and tax hikes will make their lives harder. People are concerned that they will have less disposable income and more personal debt after the budget as a result of the policies agreed by Fine Gael and Labour.

Having said this it is my understanding that last years decision to hold the budget announcements over two days was was at the request of the Labour party, who wanted their day in the limelight. Now, having realised that this move was a serious political miscalculation they have requested that the budget returns to a single day.

While this may make the life of Labour Ministers and backbenchers a little easier it will be no consolation to the hundreds of thousands of families whose lives will be made significantly harder by the measures that will be announced on budget day.

In 2011, cuts to expenditure had been announced by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin on the first day, while the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan outlined the tax changes on the second day.

Next month’s budget is set to cut €3.5 billion in both taxes and spending cuts, comprising of €1.25 billion in taxes and charges and a further €2.25 billion in spending cuts.

Minister Noonan has previously stated that the current rates of income tax, income bands and tax credits would remain unchanged.

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