Why not do something creative with the €400 million cut from the drugs bill? Maybe address a social need, increase growth and employment, and reduce household costs? By Michael Taft.

One of the keys to an alternative budgetary strategy is to stop cutting current public spending. This would provide an opportunity to re-direct or re-invest productivity gains and spending efficiencies into expanding growth and employment. This would be more effective at repairing public finances than the current austerity strategy.

The key message from recent work by Claiming Our Future is that if the Government wants to hit low-average income groups, it is a political decision – not one based on economic or budgetary necessity. By Michael Taft.

Don’t be surprised if unemployment remains high if the Government pursues job-cutting measures. By Michael Taft.

It’s official. The Government’s employment policy is failing. This finding comes from the Government itself, in the form of projections contained in yesterday’s Medium Term Fiscal Framework. The projections are chilling and depressing. Let’s first turn to employment.

If, as we are told, everything is on the budgetary table, why is there no place for an increase in the corporate tax rate? By Michael Taft.

Despite the Jobs Initiative, the Action Plan for Jobs, the ‘jobs-friendly’ budget last year, the EU is projecting that unemployment will still be 14.2% in 2014. By Michael Taft.

There is a strong argument that the Government should not introduce a house-property tax next year: the economy and hundreds of thousands of households simply cannot absorb it. By Michael Taft.

That the family featured in an Irish Times article by Kathy Sheridan last week is going through seriously difficult times is, unfortunately, becoming ever more ordinary for hundreds of thousands of households. So why is Eilis O’Hanlon having such a go at them in the Sunday Independent? By Michael Taft.

That we can’t, that we don’t, ensure that nobody in our society goes without food says something about the kind of society that is being created for us. By Michael Taft.

Over the next few weeks, when you hear commentators asking – “Will the Government cut child benefit?” – just remember: they're already cutting it. By Michael Taft.

The Nevin Economic Research Institute's budgetary proposals would remove the need for cuts in public services and social protection, increase investment, and keep more people at work than under the Government’s plans – and all this while maintaining the same pace of deficit reduction. By Michael Taft.