2010 Irish budget

The 2010 Irish Budget refers to the delivery of a government budget by the Government of Ireland on 9 December 2009, its third in fourteen months. It was also the third overall budget to be delivered by Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan as Minister for Finance.

The 2010 Budget was described by commentators in Ireland and around the world in unusually harsh terms as €4 billion was removed from the country's national deficit. It was characterised by pay cuts for public sector workers and cuts in social welfare. According to the BBC, social welfare cuts had not been implemented by the country since 1924.^[1] The cuts prompted at least one angry outburst in Dáil Éireann, the principal chamber of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament). Among the other initiatives unveiled in this Budget was a car scrappage scheme as well as a new carbon tax.

The post-budget debate was interrupted by a famous use of unparliamentary language by Green Party TD Paul Gogarty, an example which attracted international attention.^[1][2][3]