Tag: National Budget

A significant part of the Constitution of Ireland sets out how public money is to be managed. Article 10 is about the state’s ownership of natural resources. Article 11 sets up the central fund for state revenue. Article 17 gives the Dáil the imperative to consider the estimates of receipts and expenditure of the state…

Ireland has six political parties that might plausibly form part of a government, and none of them has an agenda to raise taxes to any significant degree. Most of them probably agree with the plan to slowly raise social insurance (the rate is going up by 0.1 percentage points in October 2024) and those leaning…

The last time Ireland intensively scrutinised public spending was when the economy had collapsed in 2008. The scale of the national debt and loss of tax revenue at the time threatened the financial ruin of the state. That was not the best environment in which to consider where the state spends money and what we…