Ireland yesterday announced an annual budget that comprised €6 billion in savings via tax hikes and spending cuts that are necessary to secure an EU-IMF bailout.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, delivering his 2011 Budget to the Dail, or lower house of Parliament, said he would make the savings as part of a four-year plan to slash a huge deficit by a total of €15 billion.

“As outlined in the plan, €6 billion of the overall adjustment is made in today’s Budget. The scale of this adjustment is demanding but it demonstrates the seriousness of our intent,” Mr Lenihan told lawmakers.

Ireland’s Budget comes at a critical time for the former Celtic Tiger nation, whose €85 billion bailout was formally adopted by EU finance ministers yesterday.

Financial markets are on edge over the eurozone debt and deficit crisis, which has also sparked an international bailout for Greece.

Ireland’s governing Fianna Fail/Green party coalition, led by Prime Minister Brian Cowen, is clinging to power amid public anger over the eurozone nations’ debt crisis.

“This has been a traumatic and worrying time for the citizens of our country,” Mr Lenihan said yesterday.

Later, hundreds of activists took to the streets of Dublin over the Irish government’s toughest Budget in the history of the state.

Tensions ran high outside the gates of the Irish Parliament as smoke bombs and flares were lit by chanting demonstrators who faced a wall of gardai.

Three men were arrested for public order offences.

City centre workers, mothers and trade union members angry with leaders for accepting government-backed pay deals joined the lively rally of about 500 people.

Sandra Doran, a 31-year-old sales rep from Rathfarnham, south Dublin, said she felt compelled to protest for the first time.

“We are just here to show we care, to show the world we are not going to take this lying down and that this is all the bankers’ fault,” she said.

“I came out because I don’t want to look back in 10 years when everything has gone down the tubes and think I didn’t do anything. At least I can say I was here.”

Full-time mother Fainche Coffey brought her four-year-old daughter Isabel to join members of a “pots and pans protest”, whose rhythms lightened the mood compared to the violence which marred recent demonstrations.

She said cuts in social welfare and child benefit payments will directly affect her life. “At the moment, every tenner counts so I am going to feel this,” she said.

About a dozen separate groups organised different marches which converged at the Dail as Finance Minister Brian Lenihan revealed the Government’s six billion euro cuts.

MEP Joe Higgins, who led a rally by the newly-established United Left Alliance, called for a 24-hour general strike.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.