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Budget 2012

In photos: Memorable Budget days of the past

Bruton’s VAT on children’s shoes, McCreevy’s decentralisation, Mac the Knife, ‘turning a corner’ – and plenty more.

IT’S A DAY that has prompted more fear and loathing and love and hope – occasionally flipping between appalling savagery and surprising generosity.

Budget Day, down the years, has come to occupy a somewhat mythical status – a day that makes or breaks the careers of Minister for Finance, makes unlikely icons out of others, and has bequeathed more than its fair share of terminology to the watching public.

Here’s our quick look back at some of the more memorable Budgets of the past to whet the appetite and jog the memory, with a few bits of trivia thrown in wherever possible.

You might know, for example, that the 1982 Budget brought the collapse of a government – but you might be mistaken as to which vote prompted Garret’s trip to the Áras…

In photos: Memorable Budget days of the past
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  • 1970 - Absent Frenemies

  • 1980 - 'Way Beyond Our Means'

  • 1982 - "Children's Shoes" (or was it?)

  • 1987 - Mac The Knife

  • 1991 - Prime Time

  • 1992 - Lovely Girls

  • 1995 - The Least Secret Budget Ever?

  • 2000 - The Great Giveaway Show

  • 2004 - 'Dublin-centric thinking'

  • 2009 - What's That in the Distance?

  • 2009 (again) - Emergency Measures

  • 2011 - Out of our Hands

All photos (except 1980) from the Photocall Ireland archive.

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