FF need to start asking: "Where's the beef?"

The budget was hard, and will hurt a lot of people. That’s what recessions do. What surprises me about this budget, and FF’s communication of it, is FF’s inability to take FG and Labour to task over their alternatives. Rather than spend money on their we-have-to-have-a-website-so-let’s-have-a-website, why not set up a very media friendly site outlining the opposition’s alternatives, including tallying, dating and costing every “Call for more resources” (And subsequent tax increases) issued by every opposition spokesperson, and putting it all on a single handy-to-read sheet? For example, every opposition TD, when asked to explain how their promises will be funded, tend to use the same sources, tax loopholes and efficiency in the spending. Surely you can only spend that money once, if indeed it does exist at all? I don’t say this out of any particular love for FF, whose weak leadership in the good times has caused the massive and unsustainable spike in spending, but let us at least have a proper debate.