Saville, Civil Partnership, Bailout
Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fáil–Green Party Government entered the year under intense pressure. The collapse of the property-centred boom had devastated tax revenues, construction employment and the balance sheets of Irish banks. Measures announced in the December 2009 budget shaped daily life through 2010: public-service pay reductions, altered social-welfare payments, a new carbon tax and other retrenchment measures reflected an attempt to close a deficit that was far beyond normal peacetime experience. Ministers argued that fiscal correction was unavoidable; opponents disputed both the distribution of the burden and the Government’s handling of the banking system.