IN a curious departure from his speech to the Irish Profit Sharing Association in Dublin this week, the junior Minister at the Department of Enterprise and Employment, Mr Pat Rabbitte, turned his attention to the forthcoming budget.

"The notion that Budget Day has become passe, a non-event, and a big yawn is something intensively cultivated by some sections of the media in particular. This kind of comment is really to engage in facile, anti-democratic, anti-civic and anti-politics propaganda," he thundered.

What could have been behind this outburst? Only wicked minds could believe his remarks to be a criticism of the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, who is known to be enthusiastic about the Government's move to multi-year budgeting, and has said repeatedly that he would be happy for Irish budgets to contain no surprises.