bed community hospital and a route around a southern Irish town could be all that stands between Ireland passing a new austerity budget or having to trouble Brussels and Washington for a bailout. With borrowing costs breaching record highs every day this week, Ireland's government will unveil the goal for next year's toughest ever budget as it tries to ease concerns that it is on the verge of a Greek-style debt crisis. Its hopes of passing cuts and tax hikes expected to be worth around 6 billion euros ($8.5 billion) in December and avoiding a snap election rest on the votes of two government-supporting independent MPs after its majority fell to just three votes this week. Jackie Healy-Rae, a rural publican renowned for his flat caps and colorful turn of phrase, is one of the two independent MPs. On Thursday, the Kerry man warned the government against shelving plans for a new 8-million-euro hospital in one of the towns he represents and ditching a 137-million-euro project to build a road around a neighboring constituency town. Healy-Rae, the oldest member of the lower house, voted against the government for the first time since 1997 in June over a bill banning stag hunting. A senior government party MP who voted against that bill was stripped of his parliamentary party privileges as a result. The government must be wary of his intentions, as well as those of two other dissenting party members and junior partners the Greens. __
