How to budget for Jim Gavin’s failure

The calculators are at the ready, and the ledgers and the balance sheets are open.

Projections, predictions, cuts, impacts. We have them all covered.

It’s that regular occurrence in Irish public life: trying to budget for how much of Fianna Fáil’s political capital has been deflated through another self-inflicted omnishambles.

I’ve been covering budgets for the past 20 years and I can’t remember one being overshadowed to such a huge extent by another domestic political story. Of course, it’s the fallout from the dramatic withdrawal of Jim Gavin from the presidential election campaign.

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How to budget for Jim Gavin’s failure

It is the lead story today and eclipses the usual First Tuesday in October all-day menu, which more or less tells you everything that’s digestible in the budget.

Strangely, there will be a pause of 24 hours in the Gavin campaign postmortem to allow the budget to be passed. Hostilities will resume on Wednesday at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party when the main architects of bringing Gavin on board – Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Finance Jack Chambers – will feel the heat from the parliamentary colleagues.

There was a lot of fury among TDs, Senators and MEPs on Monday.

There are many threads to follow from this particular event. For one, Fianna Fáil will not have a candidate. Secondly, even if the issue of the €3,300 in a rent overpayment had not come up, there would have been questions asked about the candidate.

Gavin, for all his previous gaiscí in the Defence Forces, the GAA and the Irish Aviation Authority, was poor at politics and was poor at communications. In such an unforgiving election as this one, he was doomed to finish a distant third.

Martin was on Six-One on Monday night in an interview that looked like a damage-limitation exercise. Water has been shipped, there is no doubt about that. He suggested that Gavin made the decision to withdraw but not after some private conversations with Martin on Sunday afternoon (that may or may not have involved pointing in the direction of a plank).

Will it affect Martin’s leadership? It will but not enough to oust him. Will it affect the outcome of the election? The clear understanding among Fianna Fáil parliamentarians is that the party issues no direction to its members on whom to vote for. While the majority will gravitate to Heather Humphreys, Fianna Fáil will not be campaigning for her. The advantage seems to have shifted very much in the direction of Catherine Connolly.

We have had some great writing and broadcasting on the issue over the past 36 hours.

Pat Leahy poses five questions that Fianna Fáil must answer after the abandonment of Gavin’s campaign.

Colm Keena has spoken to the former tenant of the property once rented from Gavin.

Follow the continuing fallout in our live story.

Oh yes, and there is a budget today

We have not ignored the budget and there is plenty of coverage today, previewing the big reveal at 1pm.

While the Central Bank and IFAC warned that the package of more than €9 billion was too expansionary and risked overheating an economy of (technically) full employment, the political reaction is largely that it has been too parsimonious.

Paschal Donohoe and Jack Chambers have stuck within the guide rails this year so there is no discretionary or once-off spending.

There was tension between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over how the pot would be split. There was more than a little resentment within Fianna Fáil that the costly enough Fine Gael measures of reducing VAT to 9 per cent for non-hotel hospitality is going through. There will be keen interest to see exactly how much Fianna Fáil Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary has pushed through on the welfare side.

Cormac McQuinn and Jack Horgan-Jones have been keeping a close eye on all developments in the past 24 hours – decisions for some of the key departments were not finalised until Monday.

There are a few fresh details: Jack reports that the basic scheme for artists is to be made permanent.

Both Cormac and Jack have a full run-down on what measures and changes you should expect in the budget. It is very comprehensive and well worth reading.

Follow our coverage throughout the day in our live blog where you can also watch the budget speeches, and we’ll have analysis, videos, newsletters and podcasts later in the day.

US pressure to suppress the Occupied Territories Bill

Some 22 US members of Congress have written to the Taoiseach warning of the consequences of passing the Occupied Territories Bill, Pat Leahy reports.

It is not the first time that US politicians have intervened to pressurise the Government to abandon the Bill.

“Were it to pass this Bill, Ireland would risk causing significant damage to its own economic credibility and partnerships with American commerce,” states the letter from the bipartisan group.

“Ireland’s efforts to single out Israel with this one-sided legislation and trying to rewrite international law to target the world’s only Jewish state will only empower Hamas terrorists and embolden anti-Semitism around the world,” wrote Democratic congressman Josh Gottheimer, who is leading the group.

There is overwhelming support for the Bill among all political parties in Ireland, although the debate continues about including services in the Bill. The latest letter from the group of politicians from Congress shows that pressure from the US side is ramping up.

Best Reads

Miriam Lord has a look under the bus where the Jim Gavin campaign finally came to a crashing halt.

In a special edition of our Inside Politics podcast, Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones discuss the dramatic events with host Hugh Linehan.

Fintan O’Toole has a really insightful column that explores the basic weakness of the Gavin proposition that was never properly explored by Micheál Martin.

Pat Leahy explores what happens next?

There is a lovely report from Arthur Beesley on Manchán Magan’s funeral Mass in Dublin.

Playbook

Dáil

The business of the day will be taken up with the budget, with speeches for more than six hours and then financial motions and votes later in the evening, on any budgetary measures that need to be passed by the Oireachtas with immediate effect from midnight.

1pm: Budget statements. Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe will deliver his Budget speech, followed by Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers. The Opposition spokespeople will respond during the course of the afternoon.

8pm: Financial motions by the Minister for Finance

12.30am: Dáil adjourns