'Bludget Day' bludgeoning is top Twitter
ON Twitter, they had tagged it as the 'Bludget' after Marian Finucane stumbled over the word 'budget' a couple of weeks back.
And it seemed apt, as the majority of those in the Irish political community on the internet yesterday evening felt that there was blood on the Dail carpet, mostly theirs.
We were bludgeoned.
"They targeted the most vulnerable while letting TDs' backpockets, the public service, property developers and bankers get away with murder," one poster, Likely Lad, on politics.ie maintained.
"Simply, they've set everything up for the IMF to do the dirty work they won't do when the State is bankrupt this August/September. Today is the death of Ireland, this was our last chance, it's over."
Uplifting stuff and, truth be told, it was almost impossible to find a kind word about Brian Lenihan's Bludget anywhere, despite it being one of the top topics on Twitter and despite politics.ie reporting its highest-ever number of users yesterday.
Santa
This one was hard to digest, even when reduced to the 140-character limit on Twitter. "Brian Lenihan has quite literally cancelled Santa Claus ... it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so true," Mark Coughlan said in response to the cancellation of the extra payment to social welfare recipients at Christmas.
But not everyone had as much sympathy.
"I have a couple of friends who are long-time claimers (due to being able to survive on the dole and not looking for work very hard), and they call it 'double dole' with a laugh and a grin," Doubs said on boards.ie.
Among the main talking points on all political sites were the 25c rise in cigarette prices, the cut in rent allowance, and the fact that Mr Lenihan appeared to be putting a lot of measures off until the next Budget. The €80bn and the asset management company were perhaps too big to form a quick coherent opinion.
Everything else was heavily criticised, as was Mr Lenihan himself, and the Government as a whole. It seems everyone has an opinion on this one, and more than ever they turned to the internet to vent their frustration.
"Twitter is lagging," Eolai observed.
"Has it been taxed?" That might have been funny a year ago, now it's a possibility. Another poster claimed that the increasingly regular Budgets should carry advertising as a new revenue stream. Perhaps the Canadian jobs fair is interested?
- JASON O'BRIEN
