- Read more: Pre-Budget 2027 Report
The report warns that fiscal policy must avoid adding to inflationary pressures, that repeated spending overruns undermine transparency, and that Ireland’s reliance on concentrated corporation tax receipts creates serious risk for the public finances. It also calls for a broader tax base, a credible domestic fiscal rule, and more multi-annual budgeting.
- Read more: Budget Choices 2027
Social Justice Ireland has published Budget Choices 2027. The publication sets out fully-costed budgetary packages across more than a dozen policy areas including health, housing, education, welfare and sustainability, alongside a set of costed revenue-raising proposals. It is aimed at shaping Budget 2027 debate ahead of the autumn Budget process.
- Read more: Public support for welfare and redistributive policies in Ireland
The ESRI has published a report “Public support for welfare and redistributive policies in Ireland. This study was conducted in partnership with Community Foundation Ireland.
- Read more: Post-Budget 2026 Report
The Committee on Budgetary Oversight, established to enhance the role of the Oireachtas in the budgetary formation process, has published its Post-Budget 2026 Report. “The Committee’s post‑Budget review highlights the need for a resilient and transparent fiscal framework amid growing geopolitical and economic uncertainty. The report warns that Budget 2026 is expansionary and pro-cyclical at…
- Read more: The Hidden Downside of Tax Cuts and Energy Credits for Controlling Inflation
This paper points to the negative effect of inflation on spending power—especially for those reliant on social protection—and its negative effects on public spending and Ireland’s competitiveness, while highlighting the extent to which the government is accused of driving inflation higher through universal energy credits and tax cuts, with the end result of reducing everyone’s…
- Read more: On a plane with Nicolas Schmit, the lead-candidate of the European Socialists in the coming EU elections
Sunday morning. 7 April. Nicolas Schmit, the EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights and Spitzenkandidat of the European Socialist for the coming EU elections and I bump into each other on board a morning flight to Charleroi. Schmit is returning from an election campaign rally in Romania. I am on the way to a European…
- Read more: How We Track Public Spending
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…
- Read more: Public Spending and the Choices Facing the Next Government
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…
- Read more: An Introduction to Ireland’s Public Spending Explained 2024
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…
