TOP economist Dr Stephen Kinsella has described the “fiver budget” as a ploy to keep the Government in office while not properly addressing any of the major issues the country faces.
“Politicians think that if they give us five quid we are going to say ‘Oh I must vote for that person’. It’s completely untrue”, Dr Kinsella said
Speaking at a post-Budget breakfast hosted by Shannon Chamber on Wednesday morning, Dr Kinsella said “politicians never seem to learn as this budget is just crumbs for everyone”.
“Politics is trumping economics as the minority government continues to produce non controversial outcomes”.
“Homelessness and housing remain the largest problems in this country, but we gave money to everybody instead.
“We had €3 billion to spend and we could have said ‘f**k it, let’s fix homelessness, and if you have a problem with that, talk to the homeless man on the street. While that is an extreme example, we could still have tried.”
“They have given another €500 million to the most expensive health system with the worst outcomes in the OECD.
Dr Kinsella said that more money would not fix the health system as the problem was within the structure “and nobody is addressing that”.
Stating that around €1.5 billion was spent on higher education every year, he criticised the fact that only €36 million was allocated in the budget.
Addressing regional interests, Dr Kinsella said that the Mid West was performing well against the national average, despite any new measures to assist businesses.
“The Mid West has been preferred for investment because housing prices in the region are more affordable.”
“In turn, the number of people unemployed in the region has dropped from a high of 30,000 in 2011 to 14,000 in December of last year.
The labour market landscape has changed from manufacturing to a key supply chain management approach and the market would tighten in time.
He described the stimulus package for the housing property market as “bananas” and said it would have a reverse effect within a few hours of its announcement.
“There were fears that this €20,000 rebate would go in to the pocket of developers but in fact that the equity  in houses just went up.
“I checked Daft.ie website last night and house prices had increased by €20,000 and we haven’t even been given the full details of it in the Finance Bill,” he revealed.
