From the moment Minister for Finance Michael Noonan stood up on Tuesday for his budget speech, dozens of Opposition politicians and researchers began poring frantically through the numbers looking for inconsistencies.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael TDs and their Independent colleagues rushed out press statements welcoming the biggest crowd-pleasers, such as €5 welfare increases, first-time buyer grant, or Katherine Zappone’s childcare package.

This PR ping-pong is well established. The name of the game for the Opposition is to expose “black holes” (measures that are not financed); stealth taxes; banana skins; and sly cuts.

In some years, the government has remained unscathed. In other years, ministers have shipped big damage. There have been some spectacular losers over the years.

A short-lived Fine-Gael coalition fell in 1982 when it tried to impose VAT on children’s shoes, while Charlie McCreevy decentralisation plan took a while to explode in December 2003, but it did.

This year’s budget has been different. Little was unpredicted. In addition, we had a unique arrangement where the main Opposition party was party to the document and made inputs to it. So who were the winners and losers?

Family values

Well, clearly, the biggest winner is Katherine Zappone, the Minister for Children went for a progressive childcare package tilted towards less well-off families – even if was criticised for giving nothing to stay-at-home parents.

Fianna Fáil thought it had a big victory by insisting on a €5 increase for pensioners, but Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar outflanked them by extending it to most welfare recipients, albeit with a later start date.

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe emerged with his reputation enhanced, impressing even colleagues whose demands he refused during exhausting battles.

“He got quite testy at times, more confrontational than I expected,” says the minister. “But he’s good at saying no. Noonan was more likely to compromise.”

However, he lost a little ground by not spotting the TDs’ pay rise row.

Overall the budget was a nil-all draw for Michael Noonan – confirmed by the ESRI’s assessment of its outcome being neutral for most, save for the least well off, which benefitted marginally (three-quarters of 1 per cent).

It was a neutral outcome too for the other Independents, other than Zappone. Denis Naughten won a few concessions. The Independent Alliance’s claimed the decrease in prescription charges for over-70s. Commendable, but hardly anything to write home about.

Meanwhile, RTÉ’s Prime Time made an extraordinary call when it decided that its budget night debate should feature Noonan and Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, rather than the usual FG-FF clash.

Sure, a traditional oppositional debate between Noonan and Fianna Fáil’s Micháel McGrath would have been a damp squib, perhaps. Yet, Prime Time’s call had more serious implications.

Instead of widening the debate to include a range of voices, it promoted Sinn Féin to the role of the main de facto Opposition party, inviting the perception that this is for all time.

However, Prime Time’s selection decision highlighted the problem facing Fianna Fáil, where the no man’s land between government and Opposition can be the worst place to be.

Pension increase

Like the Independents,it was really hard to identify exactly where its influence was brought to bear on the Budget – other than on the pension increase. That left Michael McGrath and Dara Calleary with insipid Dáil speeches.

Fianna Fáil’s budget day difficulties may help to explain its criticism on the housing package later in the week – a manoeuvre that can be seen as nothing other than an attempt to regain lost ground.

It did, however, have the effect of putting Simon Coveney under some pressure, especially on the €600,000 threshold. He defended it gamely but was not left unscathed.

If Prime Time illustrated Fianna Fáil’s difficulties, it had a worse result for Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty. In one exchange, he told Noonan: “I know you’re pushing on in years but you’re still smart up there.”

Copying Ronald Reagan’s great put-down of Walter Mondale, Noonan witheringly replied: “I don’t think that we should make age an issue. If you don’t make age an issue I won’t refer to your inexperience and immaturity.”

Doherty had been excellent in the Dáíl on budget day in terms of energy, even if his arguments did not always bear scrutiny. But his hard workwas undone by a silly, ageist comment.

Despite his subsequent apologies, that blunder rather than his speech will be remembered. Sometimes, as the late Albert Reynolds noted, it’s the little things that trip you up.