It could be argued that Mr McCreevy had an easy task yesterday. For once in the history of the State, a Minister for Finance was able to please all of the people at the same time. A Budget surplus of £3.5 billion gave him the ability to respond to every supplicant, albeit not in equal measure.
This is a Budget which has all the hallmarks of being, if not the product of a committee then of having been approved by committee, line by line. In political terms, it hardly puts a foot wrong. This is a Budget which saw enormous amounts of forethought and calculation so as to ensure that it was politically fireproofed on every conceivable angle. After last year's individualisation bombshell, it was important that the Budget was light on the radicalism that could be expected of a dedicated reformer such Mr McCreevy. The Minister's maverick tendencies have been tamed.
Any Minister for Finance who is in the fortunate position to give the taxpayer £1.2 billion in tax and PRSI cuts, is assured of a favourable response. Care has been taken this time to ensure that the Budget has improved the living standards of all income groups; the Budget does not reward the higher-paid disproportionately. Neither, it must be said, does the Budget make much effort to close the gap between rich and poor. The Progressive Democrats may have been instrumental in having the top income tax rate brought down by another two per cent but it is unlikely that Mr McCreevy needed much persuasion. In none of his four Budgets has the Minister shown much enthusiasm for wealth redistribution - of even modest proportions.
The favour shown towards the higher-paid could have adverse consequences. The ESRI has warned that another reduction in the top rate of tax would be likely to fuel house prices, just when there are signs that they are starting to flatten out. In more general terms, there can be little doubt that the higher paid, when in receipt of extra spending power, will proceed to spend it. The economy does not need more spending, it needs more saving. It is not likely to see much of it if Mr McCreevy's sole encouragement is a tax saving of a maximum of £500 per year, provided the savings are locked up for five years. This is less than imaginative and could be usefully revisited in the drafting of the Finance Bill.
When a Budget as political as this one is produced, it is a sure sign of election preparation. The Government insists that it will not go to the country until the summer of 2002. That might indeed be its intention but it can take comfort in the knowledge that, if it feels it necessary to call an election sooner, it has prepared the ground. And it may well feel so inclined.
This Budget is a gambler's budget. It hopes that the inflationary pressures of putting £2 billion into the economy will be offset by a rise in the value of the euro, thereby making imports cheaper. It hopes too, for the same reason, that oil prices will fall rather than climb. In short, Mr McCreevy is gambling, not on a benign international scene, but on a positively favourable one. Yesterday, some 750 employees of Motorola in Swords, Co Dublin, learnt the hard way of the risks inherent in relying on the international economy.