Your top stories on Wednesday: Tributes to 13-year-old road crash victim; ‘bonanza’ budget reaction

Good morning and welcome to our continued live coverage of Budget 2025. The day after budget day is when departments give more detailed briefings, finance Ministers answer your questions and some of the finer points are parsed in more detail.
There is a bit of a morning after the night before vibe today. While there were few surprises, given so much had been flagged in advance, the scale of the budget spending was still remarkable.
And it is that scale which is the focus for the State’s independent budgetary watchdog, which has sharply criticised Tuesday’s bonanza budget, warning that it “repeats Ireland’s past mistakes of pumping billions into the economy when it is at full employment”. Join Conor Pope for rolling coverage and reaction.
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