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AFTER MAKING three false starts in the past nine months in its efforts to regain control of the public finances, the Government can not afford another failure in presenting an emergency Budget. The question of whether it produced a budget to live up to its harsh billing will be parsed and analysed over coming days. Yesterday’s painful financial exercise might well be compared to a major operation performed on a patient without an anaesthetic; the first of five such operations the patient must undergo before being restored to full health.

The Government would appear to have inflicted parity of pain in the tax and spending measures that should save €3.5 billion this year. Those best able to bear the burden of higher taxes will do so. A degree of fairness has been established which should help secure broad public acceptance of the austerity measures. Mr Lenihan also announced that Government and Oireachtas would accept a proportionate share of the burden of economic adjustment.