Irish cancel Christmas

The Irish budget was annoucned yesterday, and as usual for Irish budgets, it got little coverage in the British news. Compared, say, to a UK budget. This is entirely reasonable.

It is generally very contractionary, which makes sense only if Ireland believes itself to be near bankruptcy. One feature I found less than friendly was in the social welfare expenditure section. A €171m saving is being made by:

Removal of provision for a Christmas bonus payment in 2009.

Which, to me, amounts to cancelling Christmas.