{"id":649491,"date":"2026-10-09T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/649491\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:00:14","slug":"lethal-katie-hannon-dismantles-the-budget-and-dismisses-jack-chambers-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/649491\/","title":{"rendered":"Lethal Katie Hannon dismantles the budget and dismisses Jack Chambers \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the day after the budget<\/a>, and Morning Ireland (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays) carries the verdict of people in Kinnegad, Co Westmeath. \u201cSpoiler alert,\u201d its presenter Gavin Jennings warns. \u201cThey\u2019re not happy.\u201d <\/p>\n

Well, colour me stunned. The day when a vox pop yields a glowing evaluation of Government expenditure policy will surely be the harbinger of the apocalypse, the rapture or the singularity, depending on your belief system of choice.<\/p>\n

That said, the sample of views that the reporter Cian McCormack hears is revealing. All his respondents voice concern about the spiralling cost of living<\/a>, even those who stand to benefit from budget tax cuts<\/a>. Others offer blunter views. One man calls the budget a disgrace, complaining about his \u20ac300-a-week expenditure on diesel in authentically angry, if faintly farcical, terms. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just hope the demonstrations start again, the blockades,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd this time I\u2019ll be going. The last time I didn\u2019t because I was working.\u201d Start the revolution without me, as Gene Wilder\u2019s 1970 comedy film counselled.<\/p>\n

McCormack cautions that his report is \u201conly a snapshot of opinions\u201d \u2013 he\u2019s broadcasting from a service-station plaza, which may account for the priorities of some respondents \u2013 but the dissatisfied mood chimes with the wider restiveness conveyed by other items on Morning Ireland. <\/p>\n

Speaking to Jennings\u2019s fellow host Justin McCarthy, Owen Reidy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions characterises the Government\u2019s package as \u201canything but a worker\u2019s budget\u201d, rejecting the call by Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers to stand down planned industrial action in the public service: \u201cPublic sector workers are very angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while Reidy disdains the budget for being aimed at farmers, hauliers and investors, the mood music from those sectors is hardly encouraging. Peter Brown of Baggot Investment Partners doubts the wisdom of the tax-free personal investment accounts announced in the budget, suggesting the Government has fashioned a rod for its own back by encouraging inexperienced savers to sink their money into the volatile world of stocks and bonds.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland\u2019s new personal investment accounts: Here\u2019s how the scheme will workOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The underwhelming mood even extends to the presenters, as Jennings apologises for getting the date wrong at the start of Wednesday\u2019s programme. \u201cIt\u2019s the seventh of October, not the ninth,\u201d he says ruefully. \u201cThe budget didn\u2019t cut the year by two days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe not, but one suspects some Cabinet members may wish that was the case. Chambers, for one, endures a long week on the airwaves. No sooner has the Minister delivered his budget address to the D\u00e1il than he\u2019s being grilled by Katie Hannon on Drivetime (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays), where the host\u2019s precision-guided dismantling of the Government\u2019s thinly spread profligacy is arguably more lethal than the brickbats of Opposition TDs. <\/p>\n

Hannon initially focuses on the fuel allowance, suggesting that the \u20ac5 increase will be offset by a curtailment of the payout period, while curtly dismissing Chambers\u2019s assertions to the contrary. \u201cIt will be less next year than this year, that\u2019s the truth of it,\u201d she says, with the firm manner of someone scolding an errant child. <\/p>\n

In contrast, when it comes to the \u20ac3 increase in the weekly living alone allowance, the host\u2019s tone is one of scornful puzzlement: \u201cWas it worth your while putting it in at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Faced with such assessments, Chambers doggedly lays out the reasons for each measure while pointing to the wider context: \u201cWe\u2019re managing significant geopolitical conflict.\u201d True, but as the old saw has it, if you\u2019re explaining, you\u2019re losing. This may explain why the Minister eventually lays out the limits of his budgetary ambitions in tetchy terms: \u201cThe Government can\u2019t insulate every price increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all gloom for the Coalition. True, Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty excoriates budget tax cuts as inadequate when interviewed by Claire Brock, repeating his snappy judgment \u2013 \u201cGone before you get it\u201d \u2013 with the relentlessness of a salesman parroting an ad slogan. <\/p>\n

But qualified support comes in the shape of the Kerry Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae, who welcomes the reduction in fuel tax, and even makes a stab at defending the minuscule living alone allowance rise. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to do something, and you have to try to help,\u201d he says. That said, the deputy\u2019s can-do positivity speaks more of a politician seeking to rebuild bridges with the Government he reluctantly exited rather than someone truly pleased with the budget.<\/p>\n

(As for the news that RT\u00c9\u2019s funding is to be cut by \u20ac20 million next year<\/a>, the show\u2019s coverage is studiedly neutral, though its reporter Barry Lenihan describes the reaction of the Montrose hierarchy in exquisitely understated style: \u201cThis has come as something of a surprise.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Having been dragged over the coals on both Drivetime and its Newstalk rival, The Hard Shoulder, on Tuesday evening, Chambers is back on air the following morning, joining T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris on Today with David McCullagh (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays). <\/p>\n

The Cabinet colleagues are there for the programme\u2019s traditional postbudget phone-in, a once-lively ritual that has grown stale in recent years, to the point that the main point of interest is how McCullagh performs in his debut turn as host of the annual special.<\/p>\n

Proceedings start promisingly enough, with Noel, an octogenarian widower, describing how his household income was halved when the State cut off his late wife\u2019s pension, a practice he describes as unfair and cruel. <\/p>\n

Chambers, whose on-air persona hovers between the unruffled and the rote, makes emollient noises before highlighting the already much-derided increase in the living alone allowance. \u201cThat in itself is a joke,\u201d Noel acidly comments. \u201cI\u2019d love to meet the genius who decided that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mostly, however, the phone-in is dominated by questions about specific budgetary measures, from the lack of grants for second-time buyers \u2013 \u201cIt might push prices higher,\u201d Harris says \u2013 to the persistence of the universal social charge, which the Ministers candidly admit is integral to running the country\u2019s finances. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0A hushed Brendan O\u2019Connor amplifies Nikita Hand\u2019s traumatic testimonyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This detail-oriented approach is of course welcome in our fake-news age. But with most people gaining something, however puny, from the budget, the narrow remit tamps down the potential for drama that ran through similar phone-ins in harder times. (And social media allows disgruntled voters to vent their fury on Ministers more directly than during the crash.)<\/p>\n

Even the dependably droll and laconic host occasionally sounds flustered by the format, hurriedly wrapping up exchanges with individual callers as he keeps an anxious eye on the clock. Much like the ostensibly bonanza budget McCullagh covers, the programme leaves few people happy.<\/p>\n

Moment of the week<\/p>\n

Given he\u2019s also an impressionist, it\u2019s no surprise that Oliver Callan (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays) should be fascinated by the vagaries of speech, as shown by his chat with the author Kunak McGann about her new book on regional slang, Around Ireland in 80 Words. <\/p>\n

McGann gives an entertaining tour of Ireland\u2019s linguistic quirks, from \u201cbrusk\u201d \u2013 Cork shorthand for boiled-sweet shrapnel, from the Gaeilge word for rubbish, bruscar \u2013 or \u201cfoundered\u201d, the Ulster-Scots term for freezing. <\/p>\n

Callan enthusiastically joins in; when his guest notes that runners are called \u201ctackies\u201d in Limerick, the Monaghan-born host cites the equivalent northern term, \u201cgutties\u201d. <\/p>\n

Amid the lively vocabulary, however, Callan spots one problem: \u201cImagine trying to learn English in this country.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly an illuminating lesson for this listener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the day after the budget, and Morning Ireland (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays) carries the verdict of people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5168,250623,128703,61,60,4106,13808,96691,24558,24878,43,41142,275540,19383,6085,70],"class_list":["post-649491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-budget","tag-claire-brock","tag-gavin-jennings","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-congress-of-trade-unions-ictu","tag-jack-chambers","tag-justin-mccarthy","tag-katie-hannon","tag-michael-healy-rae","tag-news","tag-oliver-callan","tag-owen-reidy","tag-pearse-doherty","tag-rte","tag-simon-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}