Harris denies Government has delivered Budget of ‘broken promises’

By David Young, PA

Working families have been left “shortchanged” by a budget of “broken promises”, Pearse Doherty has told the Dáil.

Tánaiste Simon Harris rejected the Opposition criticism of the spending plan during Leaders’ Questions on Thursday, accusing the Sinn Féin finance spokesman of economic illiteracy.

The robust exchanges came two days after the coalition unveiled Budget 2026. The €9.4 billion package will deliver additional expenditure of €8.1 billion and a €1.3 billion envelope of tax measures.

Mr Doherty told the Dail that there was “real anger” among working people and families at the contents of the budget.

He accused the Government of “abandoning working people to look after those at the top”.

Mr Doherty said pre-general election pledges to change income tax thresholds, phase out student fees and cap childcare costs at €200 per child per month had not been delivered.

“Tánaiste, your broken promises have caused a lot a lot of hurt out there, because you don’t get to raise people’s expectations when you need their support and then come back empty-handed when they need yours,” he said.

“That’s just not good enough, and that’s what you did.”

He added: “Tánaiste, I’m going to ask you here today – do you get it, why so many workers out there are so angry with what you have delivered in the budget? And do you understand that they feel really, really let down by your litany of broken promises?”

Mr Harris dismissed the Sinn Féin TD’s argument.

The Fine Gael leader said Mr Doherty’s alternative budget plans would have led to a spike in inflation.

“And what happens when you rise inflation – you increase everybody’s cost of living,” he said.

“So, in your economically illiterate way of assisting people with the cost of living, you actually would have hurt people with the cost of living. And that’s why, when we had a general election, people rejected your economic philosophy, they said ‘No, thank you very much’.”

What we've done is we've taken steps to help those most in need

Mr Harris said the Government had focused on protecting the economy amid an uncertain international climate.

“You never want to discuss the economy,” he told Mr Doherty.

“You never want to discuss the global headwinds that this country faces.

“We’ve got to keep our country safe. And there’s people watching in on this programme today and they remember what it was like when wrong choices were made at budgets, they remember what it was like when too much money was spent, they remember what it was like when people didn’t manage the country prudently as well.

“So what we did in this budget was set out to deliver a five-year programme for government, and it is a five-year programme for government, you’re conveniently picking up our programme for government saying ‘why have you not done everything in one year that you said you’re doing in five?’

“That’s not how it works. We need to be a little bit honest here. What we’ve done is we’ve taken steps to help those most in need.”