Brian Cowen has identified the issues for voters, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
There were no banana skins, nothing silly to enrage anyone, and all political bases were covered. With Fianna Fáil's poll rating refusing to move upwards, the election getting closer and the long slow political death of Ivor Callely being played out throughout the day, the Government badly needed a strong, politically accomplished Budget announcement.
And Brian Cowen delivered it. The Taoiseach sat beside him throughout, his face not quite recovered from the thunderous expression it bore yesterday morning when Mr Ahern dealt with questions about Ivor.
But things got better. Mr Cowen had measures addressing all the politically sensitive issues: a significant start on childcare, the standard rate tax band up 9 per cent, controversial tax reliefs to be phased out, the traditional social welfare increases. Labour's favourite issue - the tax-free status of horse breeders and property tax reliefs - was addressed significantly. Fine Gael's favourite - the antiquated budgetary process - was also addressed as Mr Cowen announced a move towards multi-annual budgeting.
And yet this wasn't an election budget. The increase in the old age pension to €193.90 backs the Taoiseach's insistence that he will not face the voters until 2007. He is reserving the increase to the magic €200 a week figure for Mr Cowen's pre-election budget next December.
The broadening of the income tax bands pushed those on the minimum wage out of the tax net and leaves those on the average industrial wage hovering over the higher tax rate. Fine Gael and Labour were quick to point out that despite yesterday's changes, 23 per cent of taxpayers would pay at the higher rate, while the Government set a target in 2002 of 20 per cent. And according to Labour, those on the minimum wage are still not in as good a position as they were in 2002.
In addition, inflation may push many of the low-paid back into the tax net and the modestly paid into the higher band. But again, next year's budget could bring the decisive and politically popular move to give both groups breathing space.
Next year will also bring phase two of the childcare package in time for a 2007 election. Phase one, despite being criticised as too modest by Labour last night, will give families with two children aged under six an extra tax-free payment of €2,200 per year, taking into account the new early childcare supplement and child benefit increases. This will give them a total of €5, 600 per annum in respect of their children.
Fine Gael's Richard Bruton and Labour's Joan Burton rightly drew attention last night to the abandonment post-2002 of the 2000 promise to double child benefit over three years.
Joan Burton said giving €1,000 a year to parents paying €724 a month for a creche place was completely inadequate. Nevertheless, voters with two children will find €5,600 a year easy to understand.
Budget days have become much more about political presentation than about announcing some real change in economic direction. Much of the ritual surrounding the event has become about as politically relevant as the ceremonial carry-on surrounding the Queen's speech at Westminster.
When a Government has so much to spend, Opposition parties find it hard to garner widespread public support for the notion that the Minister has just done a terrible day's work. Faced with a Government awash with cash for the eighth consecutive budget, and a Minister who knows the importance of neutralising Opposition criticisms and dealing with issues that worry the electorate, Budget Day yesterday was not a happy one for the Opposition.
Fine Gael's Richard Bruton said the Budget was "the first step in buying the next election, and what's more, they're going to try to do it with your own money". Pat Rabbitte maintained most people "will say they have only got their due." Mr Cowen himself acknowledged his good fortune at the outset of his speech: "We are living in the midst of the longest and strongest era of sustained prosperity in all of Irish history." And indeed no Government has ever had it so good. Economic growth next year is projected to be 4.6 per cent in GDP terms - the value of all goods and services produced in the State - and 4.8 per cent in GNP terms - the income earned from producing these goods and services.
Unemployment is expected to remain low at 4.3 per cent, said Mr Cowen.
Employment will grow by 60,000 and inflation will average 2.7 per cent. The debt/GDP ratio will be 28 per cent, one of the lowest in the EU. In the circumstances, Mr Cowen remarked last night, increasing spending by 9.9 per cent (excluding the allocation to repay those illegally charged for nursing home care) "would not be regarded as a profligate spending position".
After eight years of the Government hailing Ireland's low taxes as the engine of our economic success, Mr Cowen indulged in a subtle but significant piece of political repositioning. He said he believed it was our past investment in education - resulting in "exceptional wealth of intellectual capital" - rather than tax policy that was the single biggest contributor to our economic success.
This is a different emphasis than the one usually made by his predecessor, Charlie McCreevy, and his Government colleagues, the PDs, who point to tax policy more often than any other factor as the engine of economic growth.
Perhaps the only consolation for the Opposition is to think back to the rainbow government of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left in 1997. As the potential taoisigh toured small and medium-sized towns around the State back in 1997, journalists who rarely leave Dublin remarked on the sense of prosperity, the young people working in new factories, the brightened shop fronts and streets that gave evidence of the new prosperous Ireland.
Everybody agreed the economy was booming, Ruairí Quinn had just balanced the budget for the first time in decades. The government lost.
As this Coalition prepares for perhaps 18 more months of distributing the State's riches, the notion that those managing economic success can lose elections is the only thing that may keep those seeking to form an alternative government going.