The Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has criticised Fine Gael's decision not to increase tax on higher earners in December's budget. 

Writing in today's Sunday Business Post, Minister Howlin said it's a source of regret to the Government that they could not protect all payments in the budget - but added that it was as fair as it could have been.

But the United Left Alliance TD Richard Boyd Barrett has described all this internal budget wrangling between Fine Gael and Labour as "shadowboxing".

He says it suits Labour to make out that Fine Gael are the party who wanted to implement the harsh cuts:

You can watch the budget speech by Minister Michael Noonan below: