A SINN FÉIN TD tweeted some of the measures outlined in today’s budget before they were announced in the Dáil chamber by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

Jonathan O’Brien, a TD for Cork North Central, sent out four tweets as Noonan’s speech got underway outlining the rise in the price of cigarettes, changes to the threshold for the Universal Social Charge, the increase in DIRT, and the rise in Capital Acquisitions Tax.

O’Brien, who has just over 800 followers on Twitter, had his tweets retweeted by over a dozen people in some instances as Noonan later confirmed the measures in his speech to the Dáil.

A spokesperson for the Oireachtas said: “The convention and the procedure is that the Minister distributes the speech to members as it gets underway and that members are not allowed to take the speech from the chamber until the Minister has completed it.”

Social media is not accounted for in that convention, the spokesperson added indicating that no conventions or procedures had been broken by O’Brien.

A Sinn Féin spokesperson declined to comment at the time of publication.