Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

We are here today to begin our consideration of the Finance Bill 2025, which will give the necessary legal basis to the decisions announced in the budget and make a number of other necessary changes to tax legislation. In budget 2026, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and I announced a budgetary package of €9.4 billion, as set out in the summer economic statement. Some €8.1 billion has been allocated for public spending and €1.3 billion for taxation measures. The budgetary measures we announced seek to protect our economic stability, support our citizens and prepare Ireland for challenges and opportunities that await.

The Finance Bill implements a range of targeted tax changes, including specific measures to support households, jobs and businesses and to encourage and promote investment. The changes provided for in the Bill also seek to address the many challenges facing our society, including those of housing and climate change. It also contains a number of administrative changes to the tax code to reflect recent international developments and seeks to protect and enhance the integrity of our tax system. I look forward to bringing this important legislative instrument through the Oireachtas in the coming weeks.

We are making the best possible use of the resources available to invest in our future and to strengthen our foundations. That is why I introduced a tax package of a certain scale that does not put our economy at risk. It safeguards against risk by running budget surpluses, reducing public debt as a share of income, and building up funds so that we are prepared for the future. As we navigate uncertainty in our international trading environment, it is more pressing than ever that this Government chooses to prioritise measures that support jobs and growth.

The measures announced in the budget, such as the enhancements to the research and development tax credit, the participation exemption and audiovisual incentives, will protect jobs and build on our progress, enhancing our country as one with which and in which business can be done. Looking ahead, we expect to add a further 63,500 jobs by the end of next year, with the economy remaining at full employment in the coming period.

Housing continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing our country. In preparing for the budget, the challenges facing people seeking to access housing - either a home to rent or a home to buy - was to the fore of my mind. I have considered how the tax system can contribute to supporting additional supply, promoting and encouraging regeneration and tackling dereliction.

I am introducing in this Bill a range of measures, including a reduction in the rate of VAT applying to the sale of completed apartments from 13.5% to 9%. This was introduced via financial resolution on budget night, and the Bill will provide for it for a further five years, until 31 December 2030. I will bring forward an amendment on Committee Stage to clarify that the 9% rate applies to purpose-built student accommodation that falls within the definition of apartment blocks. That is in line with policy intention. In order to maximise the impact of this measure on the supply of new apartments, I have asked my officials to examine the potential to broaden the scope of the rate of 9% to include site and construction services provided for qualifying new apartment developments. This is with a view to bringing more apartments within the scope of that rate. Accordingly, I may bring forward further amendments during the legislative process, subject to further advice.

I am also providing another opportunity for landowners to seek to have their land rezoned to reflect the genuine economic activity being carried out, and for those who do so to apply for an exemption from the RZLT in 2026. Further changes to enhance the operation of this tax are also included in the Finance Bill.

In line with the Government's commitment to accelerate the delivery of affordable homes, I am exempting the rental profits arising from homes that fall within the cost-rental scheme from corporation tax. This exemption will apply to developments that are designated as falling within the cost-rental scheme by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on or after 8 October 2025.

I am also introducing an enhanced corporate tax deduction for certain costs incurred on the construction of apartment developments and for the conversion of non-residential buildings into apartments to improve the viability of such developments. It will be available for projects where a first commencement notice is submitted on or after 8 October 2025 and on or before 31 December 2030.

To support more people to live in our city centres, I am making substantial changes to strengthen the living city initiative to support the enhancement of older homes and commercial properties in the designated special regeneration areas in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford.

In this year's Finance Bill, I am extending the residential development stamp duty refund scheme until the end of 2030 and making a number of amendments, including providing for a full stamp duty refund to be claimed in respect of a multiphase development at the commencement of the first phase of that development.

I am also extending the income tax deduction for small landlords who retrofit their properties for three more years. To support renters, I am extending the rent tax credit for a further three years, until 31 December 2028.

In line with the programme for Government, I am reducing the rate of VAT that applies to hairdressing services and the sale of food and certain drinks in the hospitality sector from 13.5% to 9% from 1 July 2026. This will help protect the jobs of the many people employed in our small coffee shops, restaurants and hairdressers.

I am also extending the 9% rate of VAT on gas and electricity bills. This measure will support households across the country as energy prices remain high. This was introduced by way of financial resolution on budget night, and the Bill gives effect to it until 31 December 2030.

This Finance Bill confirms the budget night increase in tobacco products tax. Smoking remains Ireland's leading cause of preventable death, and the Government is committed to reducing smoking prevalence. This public health policy objective drives our tobacco tax: our annual rate changes are designed to raise the price in order to lower the level and uptake of smoking. Such a tax policy is promulgated by the World Health Organization for supporting public health, and in 2022 the Commission on Taxation and Welfare endorsed using tobacco taxation to fight tobacco consumption.

I now turn to the contents of the Bill itself. It is substantial, running to 102 sections and over 140 pages. The first sections deal with income tax items. Section 2 increases the USC 2% ceiling by €1,318 to €28,700 for the 2026 year of assessment onwards. This change is made in line with the national minimum wage applicable in 2026 and ensures that the 2% rate remains the highest rate of USC that is charged on the income of a full-time worker on the national minimum wage. It also provides for a two-year extension of the reduced rate of USC for medical card holders.

Section 3 extends the rent tax credit in its current form for a further three years, until 31 December 2028. Section 4 extends the mortgage interest tax relief for the 2025 and 2026 years of assessment. For claims relating to 2025, the maximum value of the credit will remain at €1,250, with a 50% reduction applying for claims relative to 2026. Section 5 updates the underlying legislative provisions for the compensation payable to a living donor of a kidney or a lobe of a liver under conditions defined by the Minister for Health in order that such payments remain exempt from income tax.

Sections 6 to 10, inclusive, relate to amendments pertaining to charities and sporting organisations. Section 11 extends the income tax disregard of €400 for income received by households who sell electricity from microgeneration back to the grid for a further three years, to the end of 2028. Sections 13 to 17, inclusive, relate to pensions. They introduce a new reporting obligation for qualifying fund managers in respect of approved retirement funds and set out the taxation and relief rules for the automatic enrolment retirement savings scheme.

Section 18 provides for an extension of the KEEP until 2028. The extension is subject to a commencement order as the scheme is a notified state aid and must be approved by the Commission of the EU. Section 21 extends the foreign earnings deduction scheme until 31 December 2030. From 1 January 2026, the level of relief is increased to €50,000, and the Philippines and Türkiye are included as relevant states for the purpose of the scheme. The Bill includes additional amendments to simplify the relief while ensuring it is appropriately calibrated. Section 22 extends the special assignee relief programme until 31 December 2030. From 1 January 2026, the minimum salary requirement is increased to €125,000. Additional amendments are being introduced to make the relief more practical.

Section 23 introduces a new vehicle category for zero-emission cars, where the lowest benefit-in-kind rates will apply. This section also extends the temporary reduction in the original market value for the purpose of determining the BIK payable on certain categories of cars. The OMV will be reduced by €10,000 for the 2026 year of assessment, €5,000 for 2027 and €2,500 for 2028. Section 24 provides for the same reduction in the OMV for vans, including electric vans, for the purpose of determining BIK.

Section 25 provides for an extension, until 31 December 2030, of the accelerated wear and tear allowances on capital expenditure incurred on certain energy-efficient equipment used for the purpose of carrying on a trade.

Section 26 provides for an extension, until 31 December 2030, of the acceleration of wear and tear allowances on capital expenditure incurred on gas and hydrogen vehicles and refuelling equipment used for the purposes of carrying on a trade.

Section 28 provides for an extension of the accelerated capital allowances scheme for capital expenditure incurred on slurry storage to the end of December 2029.

Section 29 provides for the changes to the living city initiative I referenced earlier in this speech. This includes an extension until the end of 2030 and an expansion in scope to include properties built before 1975, among other measures.

Section 30 extends the deduction that is available to landlords that incur certain retrofitting expenditure in respect of rented residential properties until the end of December 2028.

Section 31 inserts a new section in the Taxes Consolidation Act to allow Revenue to estimate the income tax or corporate tax due for those that are registered for these taxes but that fail to make returns in line with their statutory obligations.

Section 32 provides for a corporate tax exemption for rental income arising from dwellings designated as cost rental under Part 3 of the Affordable Housing Act 2021.

Section 34 makes changes to the research and development tax credit, including increasing the rate of the credit from 30% to 35% and in the first-year payment threshold from €75,000 to €87,500.

Section 36 reduces from 41% to 38% the rates of taxation that apply to investments in Irish-domiciled funds and life assurance policies and to equivalent offshore funds and certain foreign life assurance products.

Section 38 introduces a dividend withholding tax exemption for investment limited partnerships and equivalent EU-EEA partnerships. This seeks to support opportunities for growth in the funds industry.

Section 40 introduces the new section I mentioned at the start of my speech, which provides for the enhanced corporate tax deduction for apartment construction expenses.

Section 43 amends the film corporation tax credit to introduce an enhanced credit of 40% for qualifying visual effects projects, subject to certain conditions.

Section 44 extends the digital games corporation tax credit for a period of six years until 31 December 2031. It also extends the scope of the credit to the development of post-release digital content.

Section 49 enhances the existing capital gains tax revised entrepreneur relief by increasing the lifetime limit on gains to which the relief applies from €1 million to €1.5 million for disposals made from 1 January 2026.

Section 53 provides for budget increases in the rates of tobacco products tax of 50 cent on a pack of 20 cigarettes in the most popular price category, on a VAT-inclusive basis, with pro rataincreases on the other tobacco products.

Section 66 provides for an extension of the 9% rate of VAT on gas and electricity until 31 December 2030.

Section 67 provides for the 9% rate of VAT to apply to the sale of new apartments until 31 December 2030.

Section 68 provides for the application from 1 July 2026 of the 9% rate of VAT to the supply of hairdressing services, food and certain drinks supplied in the hospitality sector.

Section 79 introduces a new market cap exemption stamp duty threshold of €1 billion for Irish SMEs and start-ups trading on regulated markets. For companies below this threshold, the 1% stamp duty charge paid on share transactions will not apply.

Section 80 extends the bank levy for a further year.

Section 82 provides for a four-year extension of the stamp duty relief that is available for qualifying young, trained farmers.

In the miscellaneous provisions section of the Bill, section 89 inserts a new section in the Taxes Consolidation Act for the transposition of Part I of the OECD international standards for automatic exchange of information in tax matters, with regard to the crypto-asset reporting framework.

Sections 94 to 98 provide for technical and care and management amendments.

Section 99 makes a number of changes to the residential zoned land tax, including to provide a further opportunity to landowners whose land will appear on a revised map to be published by 31 January 2026 to request the rezoning of such land by the local authority in whose functional area the land is situated.

Given the time available, I have not spoken to every section of the Bill but further detail is set out in the explanatory memorandum published alongside the Bill. As is customary with the Finance Bill, there are still a number of matters under consideration that I may bring forward as amendments during future legislative Stages.

The Bill sets out the provisions necessary to bring effect to the tax measures announced in the budget. They seek to support households, businesses, jobs and investment and to protect our economy. I look forward to working with all in the House as we bring forward this important legislation in the coming weeks. I commend the Bill to the House.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. This is far from a Bill that deserves commendation. It is a shameful Finance Bill. It is one that abandons workers for those at the very top. If the Minister was out canvassing, meeting people on the streets or at their doors, they would tell him straight up that they have never felt it as bad and that the Government has abandoned them. The Government has chosen deliberately to ignore the needs of workers in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. It could have done alternatives as we and others have shown but what it did was spend big feathering the nests of developers, landlords and investors.

This Finance Bill, as I said before, has Fine Gael's fingerprints all over it. Its stamp is clearly on every page because only Fine Gael could make a €9.4 billion budget feel like an austerity budget. There is some €2.5 billion in tax cuts - one of the biggest packages of tax cuts we have ever seen - with nothing for workers. It is honestly hard to believe. The Government is putting its hand in the pockets of workers, at a time when they are already to the pin of their collars, to line the pockets of developers, landlords and investors. It is all here in black and white, written page after page in the Finance Bill.

Now that we are on the far side of the election, the Government is not even trying to hide whose side it is on. Abandoning workers by doing nothing on income tax directly breaks the promises the Minister and his party made during the election campaign. I can read to the Minister from his own manifesto the promises he made during the campaign or indeed the commitment in the programme for Government. Fine Gael's manifesto clearly states that income tax would be adjusted each and every year. The Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, said that people needed to be honest that not adjusting income taxes in the face of higher prices and inflation was the same as hiking taxes. That is exactly what the Government has done but where is the honesty now? It can try to spin whatever way it wants but people see through it.

Workers will be worse off next year as a direct result of the Government's decisions. Workers got prudent Paschal but developers, landlords and investors got deep pockets Donohoe. The Minister certainly delivered for them. Nobody felt that more than the big developers with the Minister's VAT cut for apartments. They are larger developers who have been making huge profits for years now. The Minister looked at these massive profits and the growing profit margins and decided to take hundred of millions of euro from hard-pressed workers as taxes and stuff it into the pockets of those developers.

The Minister has claimed and claimed again that this is all about viability to get stalled projects under construction but he made sure that it kicked in on budget night. This has nothing to do with viability. If you look at the figures, this is clearly about a transfer of tax from ordinary people into the pockets of developers. The Minister made sure that thousands of apartments already under construction would benefit. There are 19,000 apartments under construction in Dublin alone. This is not about the viability of them; they are already viable. Between budget day and the end of the month - get this, just 22 days - the Minister told me in a parliamentary question that this VAT cut was going to cost €16 million.

That is nearly €1 million a day the Minister is giving to developers who have built apartments they are just about to sell this month. It is unbelievable, and next year it gets worse. Next year, it will be €250 million and then €390 million the year after. Donohoe is the gift that keeps on giving, but to the developers and those at the top.

Imagine being someone trying to get by on a disability payment or carer's allowance or a worker handing over half their income in rent and seeing this kind of shameless handout to the rich and well connected. How does the Minister explain that to workers who are getting absolutely hammered by the cost-of-living crisis? These are the workers the Minister told the cupboard was bare. It is a shameful and brazen handout to developers that would even make Bertie blush.

Commitments on income tax for workers were not the only election promise to disappear like snow off a ditch. Renters were also thrown overboard in this Finance Bill. As soon as the Minister was back in office, he dropped his commitment to increase the renter's tax credit. Of course, while renters will not get an increase in their tax credit next year, landlords are going to get an increase because they are going to see their tax credit increase next year. They are in line for an increase to €1,000. The Minister's own official warned him that this tax was a bad idea and every year he has increased it. It is now costing the State €160 million. It is shameful. How does the Minister explain to a renter that Fine Gael is more worried about the landlord than the person who is forking out, every month, rents that are extortionate in this city and elsewhere?

Ordinary workers and families either get overlooked or pay higher taxes. Property taxes are going up on 1 November. Nearly every house is going to get an increase as a result of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's policy. The Minister has increased the carbon tax on petrol and diesel again and he plans to do the same for home heating oil and a bag of coal. This is only the first of five planned hikes by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the independent TDs supporting them.

If the Government does not care about the pain and suffering the cost-of-living crisis is causing people, then it should at least consider the impact it is having on the economy, because people are being squeezed. They are being squeezed by extortionate rents, rip-off insurance costs, childcare costs that are out of control and the cost of food, to the point that there is nothing left over. This has a knock-on effect. Businesses rely on people to have money in their pockets to spend. The cost-of-living crisis weighs like a dead hand on local economies. That is why the cut to the hospitality VAT rate needed to be combined with cost-of-living measures, both in terms of income tax cuts and supports. The hospitality sector knows that a lower VAT rate will not mean as much if people cannot afford to go out. It was also the wrong decision to exclude entertainment categories that always benefited when VAT was changed to 9%. These include cinemas, fairgrounds and amusement parks, the places that families take their children to. That is something we have to revisit on Committee Stage.

Of the 2.8 million people at work in this State, only one small group got anything in this budget. Under the special assignee relief programme, the Minister extended tax breaks to the 3,000 highest earners in this State. They got an average €20,000 write-off in their tax bill. Those in the special assignee relief programme are very special because people have to be earning over €120,000 to even be eligible for this tax break that Paschal has given them. High earners can earn as much as €1 million, and they can pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, a garda or the person serving them in the restaurant. It is disgraceful and despicable, and it is not the type of republic we should have. It speaks completely against equality. This group of 3,000 high earners get a €60 million tax cut in this Finance Bill. Let me put that in perspective. This is far more than the Minister spent increasing the carer's allowance. So, 100,000 carers were given less than the 3,000 high earners in this State. That sums up Fine Gael's priorities and whose side it is on. The people will remember that, particularly when they go and cast their votes on Friday.

This Finance Bill and the budget are damning. They show a Government that is out of touch. In the words of Heather Humphreys, sometimes you just run out of ideas. This is a Government willingly and cynically dropping election promise after election promise. I do not have time today to deal extensively with all the detail. That will happen on Committee Stage over three days of intensive sessions. However, the Minister has signalled, for example, his support for the recommendation on the funds sector report that led many to believe he would move on deemed disposal. I do not see that anywhere in the Finance Bill. I am not sure if that is his intention any more. If that is his intention, he needs to look at a way of having a fair taxation approach across different investment types, in a cost-neutral manner. We need to ensure we stop the very wealthy deferring exit taxes indefinitely without hitting ordinary savers. To throw it completely out, without any protections, would be the wrong thing to do.

The Bill also proposes major and extremely costly changes to the research and development tax credit. This measure will cost over €300 million a year. It is being proposed without any detailed evaluation. While a review was announced in 2025 and a public consultation followed, this has not yet been made public. As we know, the vast majority of the R&D tax credit is used by a small number of large multinationals. Indeed, many of these companies fall under pillar 2, so they have large turnovers. Revenue statistics show that 10% of the credit was claimed in 2023 by companies with fewer than 50 employees, despite the fact that these types of companies make up 98% of Irish businesses. Again, we will be proposing amendments on Committee Stage to address how research and development can be best supported for those smaller businesses.

The living city initiative is another area on which we need far greater detail. How was the geographical area selected? Why was Letterkenny included but not Ballybofey? Why not both? Why is the exclusion that had always applied to developers now being lifted? Why have the selection criteria been extended to pre-1975 houses as opposed to pre-1915 properties? These are issues we will deal with on Committee Stage.

Among the striking things that are not contained in the Bill is that the bailed out banks will continue to get their sweetheart deals. Another is the gold-plated pensions that will kick in on 1 January 2026, giving a tax break of up to €320,000 eventually to every individual who benefits from the measure. This is a Bill that does not deserve the support of the people. We will be voting against it for that reason.

Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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There was shock across the State when the news broke on budget day that there was going to be no tax breaks for workers. I was in disbelief. I had assumed that, given a €2.5 billion tax package, there would surely be something in the budget for ordinary workers, who we all know are at the pin of their collars trying to make ends meet. The fact they were not mentioned and not heard by this Government angered them greatly, and I understand why.

What became apparent was that this Government was not here for the worker, but for the banks and the big developers. This is a frustrating reality for workers in our economy who contribute so much to the economy and society in which we live. When workers are able to live, make ends meet, afford childcare, afford housing and pay their electricity bills, it is a sign of a strong, functioning economy, one that works for the people who live in it, but which also contributes to the development of the local economy and local businesses, especially in more rural areas, including in my constituency.

Is mór an trua é nach raibh aon rud don ghnáthoibrí sa cháinaisnéis. Shíl chuile dhuine go mbeadh rud éigin sa phacáiste seo de bharr go raibh pacáiste cánach chomh mór sin i gceist, ach ní raibh tada ann don ghnáthoibrí nach bhfuil in ann a gcuid billí a íoc. Tá an t-airgead ag dul chuig na forbróirí móra agus na bainc.

Workers are not only at the pin of their collars. For many, an awful lot of change is happening. I see this, in particular, in the financial sector. For example, workers at Bank of Ireland have been told they will have to work eight days a month from the office in Dublin. These are workers who are employed in places such as Galway under the condition of travelling one day a month to Dublin. These workers are having their working conditions completely changed and slashed. The bank is now changing their ability to work from home or from their local branch. Many of these workers were hired on the premise that they could work from home, with a requirement to travel to the Dublin office one day a month. Workers living in my constituency of Galway West took jobs that allowed them to work between their homes and local branches in Galway. They are now being forced to commute to Dublin eight days a month for no clear reason. Where can they stay? How can they be expected to commute for hours at a time every single week. There has been uproar around this. This decision was unilaterally imposed on workers without consulting them or their union. The union is clear that it wants the bank to engage in a meaningful discussion at the Workplace Relations Commission, so the issue can be resolved and a fair arrangement can be found to address workers' concerns. Many workers within our community and society are really concerned that this budget did not impact on them but did impact on certain others, as my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, said.

It has cut the design standards for apartments and the flagship policy in the Finance Bill is cutting tax on apartments. There are no rent freezes, increases in funding for social housing or reform of the broken planning system. Instead, there is a ridiculous policy that does nothing more than line the pockets of developers. This string of changes is only creating one kind of home, namely build to rent apartment blocks with flats that are smaller, darker and, increasingly, more expensive. For the next two years, this will have no impact on the supply of housing. Apartments are under construction or have already been built. It is an absolutely pathetic attempt to address the housing crisis.

There is a pat on the back for big developers for delivering housing at extortionate prices instead of good quality, secure and affordable housing that people desperately need. More than anything, the Finance Bill exposes the fact that the Government has no plan to address the housing crisis. Sometimes I think there may not be the will. The only way the Government can talk about housing is through a rudimentary understanding of economics, where housing delivery only exists in terms of supply and demand. The high density, high cost and low quality blocks of apartments owned by international investment funds are a symptom of a broken housing system. This Finance Bill ensures that housing is now a financial asset and not a home.

Tá daoine ag streachailt. Tá siad ag iarraidh go mbeadh siad in ann cónaí in áit éigin agus go mbeadh teach acu. Ta siad ag iarraidh go mbeadh sé d’acmhainn acu cíos a íoc agus teach, nó árasán fiú, a cheannach. Níl siad in ann é sin a dhéanamh, áfach. Ní raibh tada sa cháinaisnéis seo don ghnáthdhuine a théann ag obair. Chuile sheachtain i mo chuid clinicí, feicim agus éistim le daoine atá ag streachailt agus nach bhfuil in ann a gcuid billí ná cíos a íoc.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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If we ever wanted more proof that the Government has its priorities all wrong, this Bill is it. On a day when the Minister for housing announced a war on dereliction and vacancy, it is a joke. It would be funny if it were not so serious. We have a Finance Bill that does absolutely nothing to tackle either. The housing Minister's war on dereliction will start in two years' time, but for the next two years he will be looking for derelict properties. We know where they are because every local authority has a derelict sites register. We can start now.

I have just come out of a housing meeting where we discussed dereliction. Why is the Minister waiting two years? In every town, village and city dereliction is everywhere and houses and buildings have been left to rot. What is the Minister doing? He will spend two years putting a register together. There will be more bureaucracy and red tape. I could provide a list of a hundred buildings in Cork to the Minister. Every other Sinn Féin and Opposition TD could do the same in their areas. Why will the Minister not act? We want the Minister to collect the money that is outstanding now. We want him to get Revenue to put a levy on people who hoard houses and let them rot. This levy must start now, not in two years' time.

Regarding local government funding, the Minister of course wants to spend the next two years blaming local authorities for everything he is failing to do. In 2008, Phil Hogan, "Mr. Water Charges" and the man who abolished town councils, announced a local government budget of €1.6 billion for local authorities. This year, the Minister is allocating €670 million. It shows how desperate this Government is when it is making Phil Hogan look good. That is how bad it is.

When people cannot get playgrounds, footpath repairs, lighting or traffic calming measures to slow down traffic in their communities, the finger needs to be pointed at the Minister and the Bill. He is leaving people down and trying to blame local authorities. When we hear of old people tripping over broken footpaths and breaking their hips and knees, we should not blame the local authorities. They do not have the money because the Minister has not given it to them. The Government has slashed the budget over the years since 2008 and still has not returned funding. The Government should not expect local authorities to perform miracles because they cannot.

The Government needs to deliver for ordinary people and workers. It is unbelievable that the budget has done nothing for ordinary workers and families; in fact, they are worse off after the Finance Bill and budget. How could the Government leave so many people down? It did not leave the vulture funds or big developers and speculators down, but we are told not to worry about the ordinary working people because there will not be an election for four years. People are working every day of the week. A household with two working people is now €57 worse off because of the budget. How can that be right? How can people be worse off every week and every month after the budget?

People are working hard. Many have to buy the cheapest food possible in a shop, which is usually the most unhealthy food. People are careful when they turn on their electricity or heating because they are watching their bills. We know that between electricity and gas bills, half a million people are in arrears. Ordinary workers and families are worse off because of the Government.

We have not discussed the energy credits that the Government did not provide. It has failed to deliver the childcare it promised within a hundred days. It has reneged on the commitment to carers to abolish the means test. All the Finance Bill does is look after vested interests. Deputy Doherty spoke about a group of 3,000 high earners who earn between €120,000 and €1 million. The Government is looking after them, but the ordinary man and woman on the street who goes out to work every day does not get a tax break. The Government looked after the banks and developers, but did not look after ordinary people, including carers. There is still time to make changes to the Bill and look after ordinary workers and families.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I am pleased to speak on the Finance Bill. It gives effect to many of the announcements made in the budget two short weeks ago. If we needed any convincing that budget 2025 was all about the pending election, budget 2026, a bare budget for working people, and the associated Finance Bill prove the point beyond any doubt. This time last year, billions in once-off payments were thrown around in a transparent attempt to buy votes with our own money.

There is little sign of support for struggling citizens today. The election might be over, but the cost-of-living crisis of recent years certainly is not. In fact, it has taken on a permanence that is dangerous to social cohesion and the promise of social mobility and progress that hard work used to offer in our society. For far too many people who work hard for a living, there is simply too much month at the end of the money. We have rising grocery costs, high energy prices – we are in the top three in Europe – a housing disaster that will have a long tail when it comes to its social and economic impact on citizens, and child poverty levels that challenge the rich country story we tell ourselves. All of this comes at a time of record corporation tax receipts and numbers of people at work. For the first time in this State's short history, we have had a decade or more of sustained economic growth. It is not a want of resources that is holding us back. Rather, it is an absence of vision, sclerotic delivery and a failure to better use the money we have.

As I said on budget day, this was a budget for burger barons and big builders, all made true in this Bill. This is a case of "Show me your budget and I will show you my priorities". Wider society and the real economy have no shortage of problems. In the Bill, the Government has picked a side. A mumbled election promise to the hospitality sector has been prioritised over meaningful progress on taking children out of poverty or providing some tax relief for working people in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis. There is a further narrowing of the tax base against a backdrop of constant reminders about the vulnerability of the very taxes we are relying on to run and develop the country into a truly rich republic.

There is little or nothing in the Bill that indicates that the Government is prepared to bite the bullet and prepare the ground to raise more revenue from more diverse sources as the threat to our corporation tax and from the demographic and climate challenges really hits home in the coming years.

This is all against the backdrop of Ireland running a deficit once the windfall corporation tax receipts are excluded. According to the work of the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO, in its post-budget analysis, there was a total of €434.2 million announced on budget day in revenue-raising measures, with a full-year cost of nearly €2.3 billion of tax cuts assessed over a full year of implementation. This is some distance from the €1.3 billion announced on Friday and, as the PBO said today at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, more costly than first appears.

Before I turn to the Bill itself, I wish to draw attention to the Economic and Social Research Institute's, ESRI's assessment of the budget, and it is stark. It said the fiscal stance is loose, the macroeconomy is not in need of Government support and that there is a "reliance on unpredictable corporation tax receipts" to fund spending and this is "a vulnerability". The pre-budget warnings went on to be ignored again and, as the Minister will know, this cannot continue. The thing that is about to be confirmed and nailed down in this Finance Bill and in the social welfare Bill shortly is the negative impact of budget 2026 on the finances of hundreds of thousands of households across Ireland next year. Thanks to budget 2026, there will be an average 2% income loss across households next year. The big losers will be low-income households who can ill-afford what will be for them a 2.5% drop in their incomes in 2026. In fact, when we factor in the loss of the once-off payments, this is the cohort that is most exposed with the withdrawal of temporary measures and budget and tax spending changes. This will lead to a 4.1% loss for them. We might compare this to a minuscule loss of 0.3% for higher-income households. This Bill, along with other shortcomings in the 7 October budget, sees low- and middle-income citizens, frankly, left up the creek as costs rise and show no signs of stabilising or coming down. Of course, these losses will be exacerbated for working families next year with the decision to freeze tax bands and credits, and the Minister has explained why that is the case.

In a comprehensive Bill, I want to limit my comments to two or three areas, that is, the taxation choices made by Government as proposed in this Bill, the impact on working people and the measures proposed in the Bill on housing more broadly. In the first instance, I will refer to section 2. The only positive adjustment made to the personal tax code for PAYE workers is the change made to the universal social charge, USC. This pushes the 2% ceiling up to take account of the welcome 65 cent increase to the hourly rate of the national minimum wage as was proposed by the Low Pay Commission. This is not a new or novel departure. The Minister will know that I set that precedent back in 2015 in the context of the first report for the Low Pay Commission. It is positive that the principle of doing this is still respected. It is important that work always pays. It is important also to ensure that as much as possible of the increase due to national minimum wage workers goes directly into their pockets. That is a good thing. Beyond this, however, there are nothing but effective tax rises next year due to the refusal and failure to do indexation. As the Minister knows, wages are set to grow by an average of almost 4% next year, and with no changes to PAYE rates or thresholds, more people will pay VAT at the higher rate. This runs counter to, for example, the Fine Gael manifesto pledge.

Simply put, if we are to get to a point where nobody earning less than €54,000 per year will pay the higher rate of tax, which is the direction of travel we thought the country was going, that is an adjustment now of an average €2,500 per year at an eye-watering €1 billion-plus per annum through the rest of the lifetime of this Government. That looks increasingly unlikely in truth. Therefore, the net effect of all this is that the Exchequer will probably collect €1 billion-plus more income tax next year merely as a result of the modest pay hikes workers expect to experience next year. Department of Finance data suggests this means that workers, for example, on €50,000 will pay half of their expected pay rise in tax, meaning in real terms that they will probably be paying just shy of another €1,000 next year compared to this year. This will, without a shadow of a doubt, lead to another consequence that the Minister may be concerned about given that this particular budget was framed as a pro-enterprise budget, and there are some pro-enterprise initiatives in it. It will lead to markedly increased demands for pay increases as the real value of wages is allowed in so many cases to fall.

It is my view, and I have argued this time and again, that we should legislate to provide some form of automatic indexation to our personal taxation system on an annual basis and that we should do the same in terms of specific core weekly social welfare rates. I believe this would be the mark of a mature country. It would provide some certainty for working people, businesses and the Exchequer. We could then have an informed debate each year about the meat and drink of sustainable taxation and spending outside of that. That should be where politics goes.

The Government may indeed argue that the decision not to index for next year is a countercyclical policy decision, in that it by extension sees the tax base broaden. Of course, it does, but it would be an easier point to make if the bizarre and in my view poorly conceived procyclical policy decision, that is, the reduced 9% VAT rate for the hospitality sector, was not made and legislated for in this Bill. The simple fact is that this cut, with a full-year cost of just south of €700 million, comes at the expense of a form of tax indexation for working people. They were the choices put starkly.

I note that unlike some other tax measures in this Bill, there is no sunset provision out to 2030 on the 9% VAT rate like some other provisions. Make no mistake; this cut will remain in for the lifetime of this Government, and there will be little change out of a cumulative €3 billion by the time the next election comes. There is simply no case whatsoever in my view for this tax cut. What is more, the lobbyists who were arguing for it were not long in showing their ingratitude on budget day. They said it should be brought in straight away, not in July. I said on budget day that the only people who think that this is a good idea appear to be the Tánaiste, the Minister, Deputy Burke, and the people in the Restaurants Association of Ireland. The Minister knows full well that this will not be passed on. It will not improve the pay and terms and conditions of people working in the sector. The Minister will recall the first 9% VAT cut that was introduced in 2011 in a very different environment. It was a procyclical stimulus that created demand and added jobs at a time when 15% of our people were employed. There is no case whatsoever for an expensive tax break for a sector that is adding jobs and where there are more openings than closures taking place. The Minister with responsibility for enterprise has to know this. It is time that key data was produced, supported by the Companies Registration Office, CRO, on the reality of life in a sector where there is always churn. Mark my words, this will provide only an artificial lifeline to some businesses that will momentarily see their bottom line improve, while about 40% of the benefit will go to the likes of McDonalds and Supermacs. This is a bad policy - I think the Minister knows this - and it will in my view come back to haunt the Government parties.

This is the second most significant private sector employer and, therefore, it is important. Instead of this bonkers relief, the Minister should do what we in the Labour Party suggested, which is to set up, for example, a specialist body to support the industry to become sustainable and to professionalise it and to assist all businesses that are encountering problems with high energy costs, and maybe consider reforming and modernising what is an anachronistic and Victorian commercial rate system that bears little relationship to the reality of doing business in 2025.

We are told that housing is the key priority for Government. If this was the case, the much-trumpeted new housing plan would have been published weeks before a budget that would have introduced some serious-minded innovations to help build the homes people need. The decision to reduce the VAT on apartments to 9% without asking anything of developers in return is a sign of a Government and a housing Minister who will literally try anything to shift the dial on housing, and it shows a Government that is, frankly, out of ideas. I said before that so serious is the housing disaster, we in the Labour Party are prepared to consider any imaginative innovation that has a chance of working to boost supply and, indeed, any measures in our tax system that could be responsibly used to promote that. With the stroke of an unsteady pen, however, this Government has decided to forgo an annual €390 million to give big builders a tax cut and ask precisely nothing of them in return and with no social conditions whatsoever attached.

There is nothing on affordable homes, and nothing on cost rental. It means that since midnight on budget day, developers have been making an extra 4% on apartment sales, and that is on apartments that were already built, and not adding a single unit to supply.

As with the hospitality VAT rate reduction, there are no conditions and nothing stopping developers from simply pocketing the saving. That generous bonus is on top of what is believed to be a 15% to 20% margin that developers already appear to be making on apartments in cities. I have said before and will repeat now that the Government has no problem with welfare as long as it is for big builders and burger barons.

In the area of housing, the Government seems wedded to a suite of policies that have proven to be a failure. Its latest sop to developers is also doomed to failure. House prices and rents continue to rise. Evictions and homelessness continue to rise. The bank balances of big developers continue to do rise, as do the share prices enjoyed by institutional investors. The Government is caught in a housing doom spiral and needs to change course. The new reduced 9% VAT rate on apartment sales will not apply to approved housing bodies that are engaged in forward purchasing arrangements, which will create a price anomaly in the market. We in Labour have been of this view. It has been borne out by comments from Grant Thornton that the Minister would have read in The Irish Timeslast week. As Labour TDs, we have been contacted by active developers in our constituencies who have been telling us about this. We knew that this was the situation but they have explained the situation to us in clear terms and the impact this will have in creating a two-tier market and on approved housing bodies in the context of their importance in the provision of certain forms of supply. Grant Thornton stated that the exclusion of approved housing bodies "will have inequitable impact, especially for those housing bodies who have entered into forward-funding agreements at the behest of the Government."

As the Government knows, because it has turned its back on direct State construction at scale, a very large number of social housing units are delivered by private developers as turnkey projects when a local authority or approved housing body enters a forward purchasing arrangement with a private developer. I can safely say, and the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy McGreehan, will know that practically every apartment development in my hometown of Drogheda in recent years started off as a private initiative but has ended its journey in the hands of an approved housing body. We need to be careful about how we proceed in this regard. The exclusion of approved housing bodies from benefiting from the VAT rate cut is a serious role of the dice and may have the effect of disincentivising the building of apartments for social use at scale, leading to potentially fewer apartments in total across the market.

This flies in the face of what now appears to be a very broadly defined social policy. The term "social policy" had to be deployed in the Bill to give effect to this cut under the terms of the VAT directive. It is another wrong-headed policy, another gift for developers and another poorly thought-out measure, where there is very little evidence, if any at all, to suggest that additional homes would be brought forward. There is no evidence to suggest that this would work. I look forward to seeing the advice from the Departments of Finance and housing ahead of this decision having been made. As the Department of Finance admits, there is no obligation on developers to pass on the VAT reduction to home buyers. Should the Government ever decide to revert to the 13.5% rate post 2030, we know that developers will have got used to their juicy bonus and are certain to pass on the hike, leading to even higher apartment prices down the line.

Such measures are all, it seems, designed to give certainty to developers over at least a five-year horizon out to 2030, but the only certainty we get from the decision to extend help to buy by another five years at least is that it will keep inducing higher house prices. From the Department officials to the people at Mazars, those who were charged with reviewing the scheme a short few years ago said the same thing, namely that it has a deadweight effect on the market and is fuelling house price inflation. It does not take a genius to work out that developers have simply added the total benefit of the tax relief to the price of homes. There is no evidence anywhere to suggest that this economically illiterate scheme has helped to build a single extra house that would not have been built anyway. The scheme should be given a decent burial, with the money saved used instead to invest in proper affordable housing. Of course, there are those who are waiting to buy homes of their own who are more than likely renting. While we of course welcome the extension of the renter's credit, it is concerning that the rate of the relief will stay the same. This is all the more surprising in a market where rents are only going one way, which is up.

The scourge of vacancy and dereliction blights every village, town and city in Ireland. I have long argued before it hit the mainstream that the Revenue Commissioners should be given the job of collecting the derelict sites levy. The Minister will recall that when the household charge became the local property tax, compliance rates shot up because the tax was now being collected by the Revenue Commissioners, with all that that entails. Levies charged by councils are routinely ignored. The fact that some properties find their way onto the register in the first place often sees that decision being challenged by the courts. If you are a property business owner, you must have deep pockets if you can afford to preside over a situation where a vacant property that is not in use is not working for your business. Every business owner needs to sweat every asset that they have. If it is the case that you are allowing your properties to become derelict and vacant, you must have deep pockets. This is a form of extreme antisocial behaviour. Those who are responsible must be hit hard in the pocket. It is the only language they understand. The job of collecting that levy, which will now be rebranded as a tax, will go to Revenue, but, of course, the matter is not dealt with in this Bill. It was announced on budget day, and my understanding is that it will go live in 2027. That is another year wasted, which is a year that we can ill afford as the housing crisis becomes worse.

For several years, I have sought to amend the living city initiative on Committee Stage of Finance Bills to expand its coverage to Drogheda and Dundalk. The Department has finally taken note of this and it is welcome that the living cities initiative will be extended from 2027 to cover Ireland's two largest towns, Drogheda and Dundalk. We could go further. It is the first extension to other urban areas in many years, as the Minister will know. As he will also know, dereliction and vacancy is not confined to regional development centres under the national planning framework. This is how the selection appeared to be made. I understand the logic but we may need to do more. For example, could we not consider ensuring that this anti-dereliction and vacancy initiative is extended to towns with populations of more than 20,000. That would make sense and I believe we should tease that out on Committee Stage.

I look forward to working with the Minister in amending the legislation to improve it on Committee Stage in two short weeks. It is an extensive Bill. We have limited time here to discuss all the areas we would like to cover. As I say, I look forward to working with the Minister on Committee Stage. We in Labour will be tabling many amendments to the legislation at that point.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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People are profoundly disappointed with the choices made by the Government in the budget. They are disappointed because the Minister chose to fail in his responsibility to assist them in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis that persists unabated. This is starkly true in the case of childcare, in which what he has brought forward is entirely inadequate. Families have been let down. So too have their children, whose futures lie in our hands. Last September, Sinn Féin published a comprehensive and fully costed plan to introduce childcare capped at €10 a day for all starting in September 2025. I welcome that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael lifted this policy from Sinn Féin in advance of the general election. It is just disappointing that they were not willing to take our plan and implement it too, because while Fine Gael said it needed 100 days to come up with a plan, nearly a year on, we have seen nothing of the sort. I have not seen the structural reforms or level of investment needed from a Fianna Fáil Minister.

The first five years of children's lives are imperative to their physical, mental and emotional development. The benefits of early education last well into adulthood. Not only is it important that we make formative care affordable but also of high quality. We need to provide it universally to every child across the country. This year's budget opens just 2,300 spaces in childcare. There are 50,000 children on waiting lists. At the pace at which the Government is delivering reforms, it will take it more than two decades to address the backlog alone and, in fact, it will not even deliver that, because its plan to tackle these 2,300 places and schools and community centres is utter madness. We have schools waiting for decades for new builds. How long will it take? Leaving those children on waiting lists is careless and irresponsible.

Their minds are developing now. It is the Government's responsibility to provide them with the best conditions possible and it is failing to do so.

Childcare does not have to be in a state of seemingly perpetual crisis. That is simply the environment the Government has fostered through slow reform and inadequate investment. Sinn Féin would have invested €127.2 million in current expenditure and €20 million in capital expenditure in order to deliver childcare capped at €10 a day, meaningful expansion, affordable, high-quality childcare and early years education for every child possible. Sinn Féin's spokesperson on children Claire Kerrane, has shown the Government how this could be done. Somehow, I had hoped that the Minister would have learned from his own education that it is not enough to cog answers and hope the details take care of themselves. The Government needs to take the workings too if it wants to see results. Families and children deserve better. The Government is continuing to fail them. It needs to do more and it needs to do better.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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Budgets are about choices, and the cruel decisions this Government has made are all over this Finance Bill. The Government had the chance to stand with struggling families, renters, carers and disabled people, but it chose instead to stand with the golden circle - developers and fast-food chains. Once again, the people who already have the most are walking away with the biggest gains while ordinary people are left behind. The Government could have sided with the people who go to bed at night worrying about the next day and how they are going to pay bills to keep their house warm and feed their children. Instead, sided with the rich who go to bed and wake up the next morning even richer as the value of their investments grows while they sleep.

The Parliamentary Budget Office showed in its independent analysis that the lowest-income households did worst under this budget. That is fact. Coming into winter, people are looking at their bills and they feel this budget has hit their pockets. This is a Government that preaches prudence yet squanders billions on tax breaks for the rich. The cost-of-living crisis did not end just because Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil decided to stop talking about it. Prices are still sky-high, grocery bills are through the roof, rents are out of control and childcare can cost more than a mortgage. What do the budget and this Finance Bill do to help? Nothing.

A recent Barnardos report found that four in ten parents eat less or skip meals in order that their children can eat. This is Ireland in 2025, a country of record surpluses and growing poverty. While families are choosing between eating and heating, this Government has chosen to give McDonalds and Starbucks a VAT cut. On what planet is that a solution to the cost-of-living crisis? The Government has done nothing to ease household bills, to bring down grocery prices or to tackle sky-high rents. It has done nothing but look after those who are already on top.

This Bill represents a slap in the face to those who voted for the Minister on the back of promises this Government made during the general election. It promised it would cap childcare fees at €200 a month. Families are still paying €1,000 or more a month, and this Bill does nothing to change that.

The Government also promised to cut college fees. Students who paid €2,000 last year will be paying €2,500 next year, and Government has the cheek to call that a reduction.

The Government promised to tackle the scandal of 200,000 children living in poverty. There is clear evidence that a second tier of child benefit is the solution to this crisis, but the Government seems happy to talk about the matter but not take action.

The Government also promised to abolish the means test for carers. It could have ended that injustice today by increasing the bank levy. Section 80 of the Bill maintains the bank levy at derisory rate of 0.1%. At the same time, banks continue to avoid paying any corporation tax.

What about people with disabilities? Disabled people stand to lose €1,400 as a result of this budget because of the actions this Government has taken. Instead of introducing a cost of disability payment, the Government has left disabled people behind once again. That is not fiscal responsibility; it is cruel and unjust. The Government made promises to get elected and followed up with a budget and a Finance Bill that abandon the lot.

No expenses were spared in this Finance Bill when it came to looking after developers. There is a giveaway of millions in VAT reductions to big developers that are already making huge profits. Fianna Fail’s obsession with developer tax breaks is back, and Fine Gael have bought into it hook, line and sinker. It seems incredible that it was only in February that the Minister stated, “What I am not going to do is reintroduce or propose the very tax reliefs that did such harm to our economy.” Yet, eight months later, and he is doing exactly that with the Finance Bill. VAT for developers will be slashed at a cost of €390 million in the year ahead, with no affordability conditions, no price caps and no guarantee that a single home will be cheaper. Is the Government for real? Who benefits? It is the big developers that tell the Government they cannot make any money. The CEO of Glenveagh Properties had his salary increased by 80% in 2024 to a whopping €2.7 million a year. This is not a struggling developer in need of a taxpayer handout. There are disabled people struggling to pay their bills, pensioners afraid to turn the heating on, parents skipping meals, over 5,000 children homeless and a generation locked out of home ownership. Is the Government seriously telling people it is the big developers who need a helping hand?

This Bill reads like a developer’s wish list. To make sure nobody sees just how much they are going to pocket, the Government voted against the Social Democrats' Developer Profits Transparency Bill. If it genuinely believed that it is doing is the right thing, the Government would let the public see the numbers. It will not do so, however, because it knows they are indefensible.

Section 68 of the Bill makes for happy reading for the likes of McDonalds and Starbucks. These are not small struggling cafés on the corner; they are global giants with billionaire shareholders. The Government has just gifted them a 4.5% VAT cut worth millions. McDonald’s alone is set to pocket €20 million next year on the back of this taxpayer-funded gift. Does Government honestly believe McDonald's is going to pass that saving on to customers? This Bill is going to line the pockets of multinational corporations. That is what it does. It does nothing to address the root causes of skyrocketing costs for small businesses and households.

Section 22 shows once again where Government priorities lie. It has extended the special assignee relief programme, SARP, to 2030. SARP is a tax break for people who fly in from abroad and who earn more than €125,000 per year. It is an outrageous scheme which even includes one tax-free trip home every year and discounted private school fees. Instead of asking those on six-figure incomes to pay their fair share, the Government is now making it even easier to qualify for this ridiculous hand-out. This is a tax break for the rich, plain and simple. At a time when families cannot afford childcare, when carers are still means-tested and when 5,000 children are growing up homeless, the Minister and the Government are bending over backwards to feather the nests of those at the top.

Who is this Finance Bill supposed to help? The developers and fast-food chains are clearly delighted, but what about people who are actually struggling to get by? The withdrawal of cost-of-living measures is pushing more people into poverty. There should have been targeted cost-of-living measures. The Parliamentary Budget Office has done the math on this and has shown how people are being impacted. Income poverty rates are increasing, child poverty is increasing and elderly poverty is surging, from 13.3% last year to 19% now as a result of this budget. This is what Government is doing - creating more poverty and hardship and leaving more people behind.

There are real people behind these numbers, namely pensioners afraid to turn on the heating, parents skipping meals and disabled people struggling to keep the lights on. The Government could have lifted 40,000 children out of poverty. Instead, it lifted profits for developers and fast-food chains. That was its choice. That is what the Finance Bill represents: greed over decency.

An excellent report by Oisín Gilmore of TASC on inequality in Ireland in 2025 was recently published. It focuses on the link between poverty and loneliness. The report states that Ireland has the highest rate of loneliness in the European Union and that poverty is closely linked to loneliness. People experiencing homelessness are among the most at risk of loneliness, as are people with disabilities, people with reduced mobility, carers, and especially people who are older and who have lost a loved one. For someone suffering a bereavement, being able to afford a cup of coffee with friends can make the world of difference. It is the difference between staying at home and seeing no one or getting out and meeting people. When more older people are pushed into poverty, more older people are pushed into hardship and loneliness. That is the reality of what the Minister is doing and what he has chosen to do through the budget and the Finance Bill.

This Government, this budget and this Finance Bill have their priorities all wrong. Instead of tackling gender-based violence, the Minister has continued to fund the cruel and dying sport of greyhound racing. Women and children across the country are still being turned away from refuges because there are not enough beds. The Istanbul Convention says we need one family place for every 10,000 people but we are nowhere near that. Yet, somehow the Minister has found more money for greyhound racing than for domestic violence services. There was more money for racing dogs than for refuges. That is shameful.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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That is a shameful accusation.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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It is true. That is what you have done.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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It is shameful - politics of the lowest level, Deputy.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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It is shameful what you have done and these are the choices you have made. I agree; it is shameful. You have made those choices.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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This is below you.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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These are the choices you have made. Why are you continuing to underfund domestic violence refuges?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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That charge is below you and you know it.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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You are underfunding them. Why are we not at Istanbul Convention levels? Why not? You, as the Minister for Finance, and the entire Government should ensure that we have sufficient funding for enough refuge spaces so that no one is turned away. We are way below the amount of funding that we need and you know that. I recognise serious work has been done in this area by the Government.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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You know that is below you.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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It is not below me; it is below this Government to not fund properly-----

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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This is politics of the worst kind.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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You say politics of the worst kind. This is coming from a party that has just attacked basic rule-of-law principles during the campaign that has been going on this week. That is politics of the worst kind.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Listen to what you have said, reflect on it and decide whether you think it is a charge worth making.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I have listened and it is a charge worth making. We need to fund domestic refuges properly. They have not been funded properly. They have been underfunded for years and they remain underfunded.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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It is below you to make such charges.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I stand over that. They have been underfunded for years and remain so.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Do you honestly believe I am making a choice between animal welfare and supporting families at risk of domestic abuse?

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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There is not enough funding.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Answer my question.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I am saying that you, as Minister for Finance, and the Government are underfunding-----

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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You are not answering my question because you know that the charge is unfounded and unfair.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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It is not unfair. They are underfunded and, yes, you need to fund them properly.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Do you believe I am making that choice?

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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I believe that, as a Government, you are making that choice. The Government is making a choice to underfund domestic violence refuges and needs to fund them properly so we meet our obligations and meet the need that is there. That is absolutely the case and I make no apology for saying that. I stand over that.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I will ask you again. Do you believe the Government is making a choice between animal welfare and supporting families at risk of domestic abuse?

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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Yes, the Government is choosing to underfund domestic violence refuges.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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That is not the question I am putting to you. I am asking: do you believe we are making that choice?

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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Do you believe the Government is providing enough funding for domestic violence refuges? That is the question I am putting to you and I will give you the opportunity to answer. You are not answering.

Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy, move along with the debate. You have one minute left.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, the ESRI, the Nevin Institute, and the Commission on Taxation and Welfare have all warned the Minister but instead of broadening the tax take this Finance Bill narrows it again. Sections 40, 67 and 68 take over a billion euro out of the State finances. This is money that could be used to build houses, hospitals and wind farms. The Government is playing fast and loose with Ireland's future just to keep its friends in the golden circle happy in the present. We have seen this before. Fianna Fáil did it and it crashed the economy. History is repeating itself; it just wrapped up in new language and old arrogance. I will talk on Committee Stage about what we need to do on research and development.

This budget has been a series of bad choices and missed opportunities. The Government could have backed families struggling with energy bills, abolished the means test for carers, introduced a cost-of-disability payment, reduced childcare costs and lifted 40,000 children out of poverty but it chose not to do that.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I completely back my colleague, Deputy O' Callaghan. The Minister talked about politics of the lowest kind. Politics of the lowest kind is to allow over 5,000 children to be homeless every single year and to vote, year after year, against implementing an eviction ban. The Minister is a Minister of homelessness. He stands over all the things he been done in this country, all the great development, but year after year, thousands of children and their families are made homeless, and many of them are linked with domestic violence. The Government has forced families who have been in situations of domestic violence into homelessness because of its failure to put in place an eviction ban, and its failure to take the homelessness crisis seriously. The Minister put it to my colleague that it is about the politics of the lowest kind when he makes a very clear point. The Minister made decisions and had priorities, one of which was to prioritise animal welfare over domestic violence, just as he prioritised VAT cuts for developers, the burger barons and the hoteliers, over people who are in poverty. The Minister made those decisions.

To try to heckle my colleague over that decision is the real politics of the lowest kind. Fine Gael's record of 14 years in government is that we have over 5,000 children homeless. The Minister talks about failure and politics of the lowest kind but that is the politics of the lowest kind. Fine Gael used to claim that it was the party of fiscal prudence and sound financial management. However, the budget has done the very thing that Fine Gael says it is not about. What is has done is to narrow the country's tax base by over €1.2 billion. Next year, the combined costs of the VAT cut to developers and the VAT cut to the retail and hospitality sectors combined will be almost €1.2 billion. Over the lifetime of the Government, that will be almost €5 billion of tax cuts to those who clearly do not need them. It is one of the most fiscally irresponsible acts because there is no requirement around affordability of housing. There is no requirement for those VAT cuts to be passed on in terms of cheaper goods or cheaper housing.

It is also what we describe in economics as an opportunity cost because it affects us twice. We reduce the tax revenue, as the Government is doing, which is a waste of public funding, but it is the opportunity cost of the loss of other potentials and what we could be doing with that €5 billion. We could be using it to fund social and affordable housing delivery. We could be using it to develop public childcare. We could be using it to develop public transport. Instead, public money is being given to wealthy foreign funds which are the main shareholders of the big developers. Take Glenveagh, for example. Look at its share price at the moment and at who its main shareholders are. Does the Minister know who the main shareholder of Glenveagh is? It is a company called Teleios Capital. I was not familiar with it but it is a Swiss hedge fund. The second biggest owner of shares in Glenveagh is Fidelity Investments, a US-based fund. The third biggest owner of shares in Glenveagh is the UK-based Helikon Investments. These funds are gaining from the VAT cut to developers. This is where the profits are going. These foreign wealth funds have benefitted more from the budget than ordinary families have.

Regarding the hikes in the price of groceries, people are struggling to pay for food but the Government will not push for transparency on the profit gouging that is going on in food and energy prices. The Government voted down our developer profits transparency legislation.

The Government is all talk, waffle, hand wringing and crocodile tears of concern but there is no actual action when it comes to the cost of living and the housing crisis. There is plenty of Government action, however, for the wealth funds, the corporate landlords, the big fast food chains, and developers. The Government ignored the Social Democrats' proposals to help people struggling with the cost-of living-crisis, for example, our proposal to introduce energy credits worth €400 targeted at households in the lowest 40% of incomes. It ignored our proposals to introduce a weekly cost-of-disability payment, to remove the means test on carers, to cut childcare fees and student fees, to introduce a sports and activity payment for all children, and to introduce a second tier of child benefit.

Yesterday, I visited the Focus Ireland homeless services in Dublin city. What they told me, which is part of why I am so frustrated and angry at the Minister's response, was that families in this country were still sleeping in Garda stations. They are sleeping in cars and tents and on couches. The family homelessness crisis in this country is worse than it has ever been and what do we see from this Government? We see no new ideas, no Housing First for homeless families and no eviction ban, just waffle about supply and demand. The Government is out of touch when it comes to ideas and it is also out of touch when it comes to any sense of empathy or care regarding what is being done to children and families in homelessness in this country.

Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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With all the shouting and roaring, I thought there was an election happening this week. This debate involves examining the Finance Bill and many of those concerns have already been raised but are being rehashed here today.

I welcome the opportunity to examine the Finance Bill, which gives effect to the budget’s targeted tax measures and supports for businesses, jobs and housing while modernising many parts of the tax code. It is important to note that this is the first of five budgets expected in this Dáil by this Government. In many respects, it sets a steady path, protects services, invests for the future and keeps public finances on a sustainable footing. In that context, the totals matter. The budget package is €9.4 billion, comprising approximately €8.1 billion in additional spending and €1.3 billion in tax measures within a gross voted expenditure of €117.8 billion in 2026. A total of €97.7 billion has been allocated for current spending and €19.1 billion for capital investment. Three pillars dominate that spend - social protection at €28.9 billion, health at about €27.4 billion and €11.2 billion for housing to drive supply and regeneration.

This is a record budget in terms of spending but at the same time, we must be cautious. International analysts and groups like the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, are warning about potential market instability ahead. I agree that we must stay prudent and cautious, maintain buffers, deliver value for money and protect our fiscal credibility while we invest, but the public must also see real improvements in services and infrastructure and investment that is badly needed and appropriate.

Turning to the measures, the Bill raises the USC 2% band to €28,700 so that a full-time worker on the new minimum wage stays out of the top USC rates. It also extends the reduced USC for full medical card holders with income below €60,000 to the end of 2027. These are sensible, broad-based steps and both are welcome. From 1 July 2026, the VAT rate for hospitality and hairdressing will fall to 9%. I have long argued for a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive sectors that generate employment in every town and village in Ireland so I welcome the cut.

For ordinary savers, the Bill cuts exit tax from 41% to 38% on Irish funds and equivalent offshore funds, including many exchange-traded funds, ETFs, and aligns life policy exit tax at 38%. That is a clear win for small investors. I ask the Minister to update the House on his thinking regarding ETFs and the eight-year deemed disposal rule. A simplification roadmap is welcome but many constituents need certainty on whether deemed disposal can be reformed in future budgets. From 1 January 2026, there will be a stamp duty exemption for buying shares in Irish-registered listed companies with a market cap below €1 billion. The old Euronext growth blanket exemption is repealed and replaced by this targeted rule. This should help liquidity for smaller Irish listings. All of this is welcome.

Tax measures in the Bill support apartment viability and urban renewal with 9% VAT on the sale of apartments to 31 December 2030. The 125% construction cost deduction, capped at €50,000 per apartment, for projects commencing 8 October 2025 to 31 December 2030 and the extension and enhancement of the residential stamp duty refund to 2030 with better phasing rules are welcome, as are the broadened living city initiative to 2030 with higher limits and new conversion reliefs, the cost-rental income corporation tax exemption and procedural flex for the residential zoned land tax, RZLT. These steps will help to close viability gaps and accelerate delivery.

Mortgage interest tax relief is extended on a tapered basis for 2025 to 2026 with maximum credits of €1,250 and then €625 payable on the usual delayed schedule. That gives some relief to those hit hardest by rate rises. The Bill extends electric vehicle, EV, VRT relief to the end of 2026 and adjusts benefit-in-kind with a new A1 zero-emission band of between 6% and 15% and a tapered relief out to 2028. It extends the €400 microgeneration income tax disregard to 2028 and keeps 9% VAT on energy to the end of 2030. These measures support the transition while recognising real household pressures.

Automatic enrolment starts on 1 January 2026. The Bill tidies tax treatment at death, extends exemptions across structures and confirms that employer automatic enrolment contributions are exempt from USC. This is a major reform that will boost retirement security for hundreds of thousands over time.

Budget 2026 continues record investment in services and spending while also trying to balance possible challenges on the horizon. In future budgets, however, I feel that tax relief for workers must be considered. This Bill moves USC sensibly but full indexation of income tax bands should be a priority across the remaining four budgets. Without it, wage growth drags families into higher taxation by stealth.

My second point concerns inheritance tax. In Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, where family homes often exceed group A thresholds, ordinary families face capital acquisitions tax bills that do not reflect today’s property market. I support the focus on services and capital now but the next budgets should raise thresholds or otherwise ease the burden so that intergenerational transfers are fair and predictable.

Will the Minister outline the timeline and options for the promised retail investment taxation roadmap, specifically whether reform of the deemed disposal rule is on the table? Even a phased approach or an opt-in deferral mechanism at disposal would simplify life for smaller savers and bring treatment closer to direct share capital gains tax.

This Finance Bill backs jobs, investment and housing. It simplifies parts of the tax code, supports small businesses and helps households. I thank the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Chambers, for their engagement in advance of the budget. I look forward to engaging with them on the next four budgets where we should prioritise indexation, tackle inheritance tax and resolve ETF deemed disposal so that taxpayers are treated fairly, savers are encouraged and our capital markets deepen and strengthen.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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This budget and this Finance Bill are beyond disappointing. It is straightforward. It is a budget that abandons working people to look after those at the very top. The Finance Bill is nothing but a huge level of broken promises, including on income tax and renter's tax credit.

There are no changes to income tax for workers in the middle of what is a cost-of-living crisis that I assume everyone recognises while at the same time, a total of €2.5 billion in tax cuts have been handed to landlords, developers, investors and others. We had called on the Government to deliver something that was fairer tax package. We were talking about abolishing the USC on the first €40,000 that every worker earns. That would have put €746 into the pockets of workers.

They will be worse off next year as a direct result of the decisions made in this year's budget. It is as simple as that. The Government plans to reduce the tax base while increasing the tax burden on workers, as has been said by many before me. The Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated it to be the equivalent of €1.1 billion. There were promises, not just about adjusting income tax. That is the equivalent. We just need to be honest and say there will be tax increases. What was promised during the election is not necessarily what has happened and the Government is happy enough that those who can afford the least will pay the most.

There were other promises, such as ensuring workers do not find themselves in a position where they pay higher levels of income tax solely because of basic growth in their incomes. That is exactly what has been delivered by this budget. We supported mortgage interest relief. It was Sinn Féin that proposed it. It took a considerable amount of time for the Government to act on it. The European Central Bank, ECB, interest rate is now down to 2%, but the Government continues this scheme because it will not stand up to the pillar banks that have left people as prisoners to their mortgages, trapped with vulture funds. People are being ripped off and I once again call on the Government to act on this.

I do not know how many times we have been here talking about housing. Sinn Féin called for an increase to the renter's tax credit to put a full month's rent back in the renter's pocket. None of this has been delivered. We have often said that even with what is offered by the Government, unless rents are capped, money will go directly to the landlords. Then we have a big VAT reduction on the sale of apartments. Effectively, this will stuff hundreds of millions of euro into the pockets of developers in 2026 for apartments that would have been built regardless. This is hardly success. We can say the same about banks. There are no solutions for regular people who are being devastated by the cost-of-living crisis.

I have stated this previously and I will repeat it. There is a particular issue the Government has failed on; there is no cost-of-disability payment. While there are promises to deliver it in the future, we have all seen the figures. Those with disabilities are being affected to the tune of €1,400 per year. That is how much they are worse off by. We know about the costs they have. None of this is good enough. I call on the Government to recant, but I fear we will continue with this. We can definitely do better.

I call on people to think of this when they vote, I hope for Catherine Connolly, in the presidential election.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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There is a social crisis, an eviction epidemic, in Dublin 15, up the road from the Minister. The Minister knows it well. It relates to the decisions taken in the budget to give huge VAT cuts to developers rather than finance local authorities to build. There is a document from Fingal County Council about section 28 guidelines and housing growth requirements in Fingal County Council. It mentions a land bank, which the Minister knows well, in Dunsink, Elm Green and Scribblestown that could house 20,000 people. It is the most strategic land bank in the whole of Dublin. It is on a rail line, close to the city centre and it would cater for the homeless epidemic in Blanchardstown, Finglas, Ashtown and many other places and would provide affordable homes for workers. That land bank has been sitting undeveloped for a long time. It is on a long-term strategy of the council. The Minister's officials and those of the Department of housing should be sitting down with every local authority to discuss what can be done to get these land banks up and running, the infrastructure going and so forth and asking them what money they need. They need €200 million straight away.

In reply to a question from a councillor on 2 October about how many notices of termination had been given in the Dublin 15 area, Fingal County Council said that it had been told about 105 notices. Therefore, there will be more as not everyone will tell the council due to not being on the council's housing list or whatever. Stop and think about that. There are 105 families with notices of eviction in their hands in Dublin 15 alone, not the whole of Fingal, nowhere else, just in the Blanchardstown area. I have never heard such a thing. It is causing misery.

The tenant in situ scheme was cut from €40 million to €20 million. Solidarity councillors and other councillors are dealing with the misery of it, as are our offices. For example, one family we tried to help to apply for it received a reply that unfortunately given the number of active applications for the tenant in situ scheme being progressed in May and the level of funding available, Fingal County Council was not in a position to review closed applications. The funding was finished. That was the only lifeline to save someone from homelessness.

I will briefly let the Minister know what is happening to the people who are not able to avail of the tenant in situ scheme and end up being homeless. One person who had been living in her accommodation for ten years applied for the tenant in situ scheme, but was turned down. She is pregnant with her third child and has been searching for alternative accommodation for a year without success. Another person has already been in emergency homeless accommodation for three years and has to cross the M50 every day with their children. They do not have space. They are depressed and stressed, naturally enough.

Another person in homeless accommodation lost out on the scheme. The children have no place to move or play and no freedom to grow. One of her sons has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and needs additional care and attention to support his development, but cannot get it in the conditions the family is in.

Another person who has a notice of termination for 14 November has three children, one of whom is attending an autism class in Dublin 15 and is in fear of the child losing that place if the family has to go into homeless accommodation. Another woman is breastfeeding and there are many others.

A bus driver has been in homeless accommodation in the Celbridge area because he had to vacate the house he had rented since 2006. Is the Minister listening to that? Someone who has been paying another person's mortgage since 2006 is now living in homeless accommodation with mice and cannot sleep at night. The reason I am telling these human interest stories is that these are the repercussions of economic policies of this Government. I am being transported back to 2014 when I was first elected as a TD. We had a homeless epidemic Dublin 15 and now we have another one. I have never seen anything like this. If I do not bring this to the floor with the Minister for Finance, where can I bring it?

What will the Minister's budget do for the scenarios I have outlined? I can send the information for every one of them to the Minister. I am sure he does not need it. Some 105 families have eviction notices and many are in homeless accommodation, yet a land bank is sitting undeveloped because the Government has not taken an interest in it. These are strategic land banks. We could solve the housing crisis in Dublin West if that land was built on. The Minister should be asking questions. He says there is loads of money for the housing crisis. The money the Government is giving to developers to build apartments could have alternatively been used to fund councils to build public homes that are affordable, socially useful and accessible to the people in these testimonies who are on the lowest rung of the ladder of life.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Subsequent to the election, the Government produced a very ambitious programme for Government, which made many commitments to improve the lot of people in this country. Of course, the extent to which the Government can meet its commitments is contingent on a successful economy, and that should be obvious to everybody on all sides of this House. The Government decided to strengthen the economy and make sure the economy was in good shape despite the headwinds, volatility and uncertainty we face. It decided to use the first budget to put investment in place so it would be able to deliver, over the course of its lifetime, the improvements outlined in the programme for Government.

I have listened to the budget debate and the debate on the Finance Bill today. All I hear is criticism of the Government to the effect that it has broken all its promises because it did not do in its first budget what it promised to do over five budgets. To me, that is a manifest absurdity. I have heard high-octane vitriol about stuffing money into people's pockets and it being for the rich, the developers, the landlords and whatever else. We live in a democracy in this country. We all want to get elected. Governments have to govern but they also have to get re-elected. Nobody goes out to penalise all the renters in the country. There must be 50 times more renters in this country than landlords, and a lot of the landlords we are accused of supporting are foreign landlords anyway. It is absurd to suggest that any Government in its right political mind would suddenly decide that for all those people who voted us into office and whose votes we will be seeking the next time, we will punish them and give all the benefits to a tiny minority of wealthy people, many of them abroad. That would be political insanity. It is taking the whole thing out of context to make that argument, quite frankly.

The budget was delivered against the backdrop of a whole lot of economic advice from all sources - the ESRI, the Central Bank and so on - that the Government was spending too much. I suppose that argument can validly be made because it is costing almost twice as much to run this country now as it was costing six, seven or eight years ago, which indicates that the subsequent Governments have been investing massively, and that public and State involvement in the economy has increased tremendously over the past decade. The Government was faced with a dilemma. It was advised that it was risky to put more money into an already expanding economy at full throttle. However, it had to take that risk because, with a rising population, challenges like climate change and so on, the infrastructural deficit is so extreme that the economy of the country would grind to a halt if the Government had not decided on massive spending on infrastructure. That is where we are at right now. The projected expenditure on infrastructure in this country will be three times per head of population what it is in Northern Ireland and twice per head of population what it is in the United Kingdom.

Having said all that, nevertheless, I am disappointed with one section of the budget. In deciding to hold back from pouring too much money into the economy, the main victims seem to have been people who pay income tax, whether they are self-employed or employees. I would say to the Minister that there were other options, such as the banks, the vulture funds and so on, as an alternative to punishing the hard-pressed Irish taxpayer. Effectively, what is happening is that tax rates and tax credits are not being increased and are effectively frozen at what they were last year. This means the reintroduction into the Irish economy of the phenomenon that we had during deep recessions of the past, namely, the phenomenon known by economists as fiscal drag. In other words, by not increasing tax allowances and tax credits, and to account for projected increases in wages, you ensure that people's tax is actually increasing. Effectively, what this represents is an increase in income tax.

The corporates and companies in this country, mainly foreign ones, have a very benign tax regime, but the same cannot be said for ordinary taxpayers. They do not live in the same tax nirvana. The Irish income tax system looks simple at first glance, with 20% on a certain amount of income and then 40% on the balance. Of course, nothing in this country is that simple. Those basic rates of income tax are supported by a supporting cast of other charges, such as, for example, the PRSI that has to be paid. Some 14 years have now elapsed since the Government of the day introduced the universal social charge as a temporary measure. It was supposed to be temporary 14 years ago but 14 years further on, it looks to me to be as permanent as the Irish rain or, maybe, the Rose of Tralee. There is no chance of getting rid of it anyway; that is for sure. Of course, from 1 January, workers will have to make a further contribution to the auto-enrolment scheme. Looking at all of those things individually, they all have merit individually. However, it means that for the average Irish taxpayer, there are now four sources of deduction - basic income tax rates and the other three things I mentioned - nibbling away, week in, week out, at their wage packet, like squirrels.

In addition, the Irish taxpayer enters the higher rate of tax, the 40% rate, at a very modest income of €44,000 per annum. That is way out of line with most of our OECD colleagues, or competitors, if we want to call them that. It means, essentially, that for the ordinary secretary, garda, nurse or teacher, half of anything they earn over €44,000 will go in income tax. There are parties in this House who actually want to increase income tax, particularly for higher earners. The reality is that 10% of the top income earners in this country pay 70% of all income tax, USC and PRSI. The top 20% probably pay about 75% or 80% of all income tax, USC and PRSI. The Irish income tax system is steeply progressive.

What I would like the Minister to do when replying to this debate is rededicate himself to the Government's original objective of reducing the burden of income tax on the people who work in this country. That would mean aiming to have a system whereby people did not enter the higher rate of income tax until at least €50,000, or perhaps €55,000, and even at that, they would be behind most of our competitors. I want him to rededicate himself to that and ensure that at the end of the lifetime of this Government, income tax will have reduced rather than increased, if the economic situation permits, of course.

There is one other thing I want to ask the Minister. The reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9% will benefit all the businesses that are affected. It will benefit them on a yearly basis and they will save so much per year, given the difference between 13.5% and 9%, year in, year out. Unfortunately, those beneficiaries include a number of huge multiples, which I do not think should be benefited in this way, quite honestly. What was the thinking behind including those multiples in the VAT cut? Was consideration given to the idea that perhaps the right thing to do was to reduce the tax based on turnover, so those over a certain turnover would not benefit from the tax reduction? There is a ferocious difference between a small coffee shop or one or two-person hairdressing salon and Burger King or Supermac's.

I would like the Minister to answer that.

The budget, by and large, has been designed to strengthen the economy so that it will be able to meet the commitments in the programme for Government and the commitments that lie ahead, which are very considerable. From that point of view, I applaud various measures in the Finance Bill, such as the improvement in the R&D tax credit which is vital in the age of artificial intelligence. To remind the House, the cuts to VAT, with the exception I mentioned, are about jobs. The concessions for developers who are developing apartments are about creating more homes in the middle of a housing crisis. The concessions on investment are about persuading people who have money to put it into the Irish economy at a time when it badly needs it. That is the reality of this budget. If the Minister and the Government achieve their objectives of strengthening the base of the economy and expanding our infrastructure, I am sure they will be able to meet all the commitments outlined in the programme for Government over the next four years, and possibly go further.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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The VAT reduction to 9% for hairdressers, cafés and restaurants is very welcome. I thank the Government for doing that and delivering for these people who were practically on their knees. I cannot understand that some parties in here are crying that the Government should not have done that. They obviously do not talk to the restaurant or café owners who are in a desperate situation. Cinemas also want to be included in the recent VAT reduction. I have been in contact with the Minister about that and I ask him to look at it at some stage. It will not happen this time, but maybe in the next budget. While the 9% reduction supports food, catering and hairdresser businesses, cinemas face many of the same pressures, such as rising energy and wage costs, incomplete recovery from the pandemic and increased competition from global streaming platforms for many independent and rural cinemas. These challenges are making selling the operations increasingly difficult. My local cinema in Bantry serves west Cork and is a key local employer and community hub, driving footfall for nearby cafés, restaurants and shops. The fiscal cost of extending the 9% VAT rate to cinemas is modest, at around €4 million per year. Yet, it would make a major difference in protecting jobs, keeping venues opens and sustaining cultural access across the country. Cinemas already lost out on the second payment of the increased cost of business grant and the subsequent power up grant. I would be grateful if the Minister could look at this. As I said, I contacted him and while I know it is late in the game, I hope he will be able to do something for some of these struggling cinemas, especially the rural ones.

On the flat-rate scheme for farmers, this VAT change is unfair. It hits small farmers hardest. From 1 January 2026, the flat-rate top-up drops from 5.1% to 4.5%. That is €600 less per €100,000 in sales. This is money that farmers rely on to cover the VAT they cannot reclaim for small farms. That is not just a number; it is feed, fencing, diesel and vet bills. It is a cut to farmers' bottom line, and it does not stop there. The new rules could force more small, mixed-income farms into full VAT registration, adding paperwork, stress and costs. If a farmer earns from activities such as contracting or a farm shop, that income now counts towards the VAT threshold. That is a bureaucratic trap for small, diversified farms trying to stay afloat.

I also raise an issue that is affecting constituents of mine who are furious at the way they have been treated. They receive both a widow's pension and, as PAYE taxpayers, a Government pension. They receive their annual tax credit certificate and pay their taxes accordingly. However, each year, due to the Christmas double payment of the widow's pension, which is a long-standing practice, they become liable for an additional tax bill of €100 to €200. They rightly question why, under the PAYE system, they should be hit with a tax bill after the fact. This payment is predictable and reoccurring. Why is it not factored into their tax credits from the outset? One individual worked in a government job for 36 years and recalls that such small tax liabilities were not pursued. Now, Revenue intends to recover €25 annually. This is not about the money; it is, she believes, about the principle. This practice contradicts the spirit of the PAYE system and possibly the Constitution. I urge the Minister to review this matter and ensure fairness and transparency for pensioners under the PAYE system. The big issue here is that these are hard-working people. I spoke to a gentleman the other day who has a child. He said he does not get a chance to see his child. That hard-working PAYE taxpayer was hit hard. He got little or nothing from the budget and may even have come out of it worse off. He works almost seven days per week to make money. He said this is very unfair and he is suffering after the budget.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)
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I acknowledge and welcome the 9% VAT rate for hospitality, hairdressers and all the others concerned. However, when other budgets are put in place, measures apply straight away. If the price of diesel is going up, that can be done tonight, but when it is a cut in the VAT rate, people have to wait to July. A lot of businesses will not be in business by July because they were banking on the VAT rate coming down to sustain the three wage increases that have been applied in the past two and a half years. It is hard enough to keep the doors opened. If the VAT reduction had come in now, people would have looked favourably on not increasing their prices. The cost of everything, such as energy, is going up. If there is a base margin, prices have to go up.

I acknowledge the movement on the income limit for carer's allowance, which went up to €1,000. There should be no price put on caring. There should be no means test for caring. Caring is caring and there should be no price on it. Regardless whether people have the means, the carer's allowance should not be means tested. Carers provide care that the Government cannot provide. They save the Government money on care because they are caring for people for whom the Government cannot provide care. There should not be a means test.

I have spoken previously on the universal social charge. By lowering the USC without moving the tax bracket up, the Government taxes people more. This budget should have been about giving back to people who are working. Give them back something, however small, rather than taking more. The USC was brought in as a temporary measure for five years, but it still stands. The Government reduced it, when it should not be there any more, and it raised the tax base. How can the Government look working people in the eye when the price of food has gone up, the price of fuel in their car and getting to work has gone up and the price of transporting their children anywhere has gone up because of inflation? There is no rewards system in place for people who work. Let nobody be under any illusion. The Minister is holding the purse closed because he reckons the Government can hold together for the next couple of years. When election year comes around, the Government is going to hand out the sweets again and say it is great but it is going to put people through a couple of years of torture and stress as they try to keep their heads above water.

An awful lot of agencies have told me that mothers and fathers are going without food to make sure their children are fed. They are working and they have to do without food. Ask the people who are supplying the food banks and they will tell us the people who are coming to them. People have put houses over their heads, have not been a burden on the State and have agreed to work hard for the less well-off and the Government does not give them any bit of a reward. I ask the Minister to look at the vulnerable people in this country. They are now the people who are working.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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This budget has very little to do with ordinary families across Ireland. It is to do with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and where they are in the election cycle. After the budget, I picked up some Fine Gael election material.

So many promises have been broken. The Deputy is right that the Minister believes he can hold the Government together. There will not be an election for a couple of years and the promises can wait. As it was just before the last election, the sweets will follow and the Government will hope the people will forget before the next election. The people will not forget that the budget has abandoned families and certainly taxpayers.

In the election promises, the Minister's leader claimed that the Government would make work pay but work is not paying in Ireland in 2026. There is no reward for working hard or taking on additional shifts. People essentially pay almost 50% tax over €44,000. What can you buy in Ireland with €44,000? A decade ago you might have got yourself on the property ladder but not today. It is extremely low. You enter the higher rate of tax at €44,000 and, with PRSI contributions and the USC the Government claimed was temporary, you end up in a situation where work does not pay. It is hard to believe the Government and parties that campaigned so strongly on making work pay have delivered a budget that is so far removed from the election promises. The failure to index the bands is really unfair on hard-working families, individuals, nurses, gardaí and teachers who are struggling to get by. They will see a modest increase in their pay this year, perhaps, but it will be swallowed up by taxation. They will be significantly less well off. The Minister has essentially introduced a tax increase. That did not appear in any Fine Gael election manifesto. The saving is in the region of €445 million, a very modest figure.

I want to raise the issue of VAT and apartments. I welcome this. There is a viability issue with apartments. I hope this measure will see an increase. Viability in terms of housing is felt right across the construction sector. It is felt in Mayo. I spoke to a developer last week who has planning permission for a relatively big development in a medium sized town in Mayo. He says he cannot afford to build it because of the viability gap. He cannot make a profit on that development. That is the viability gap the Minister has forgotten about for ordinary developers trying to build in rural Ireland. I ask him to consider the fact there is so little development happening, particularly in rural Ireland, despite the fact there is such a housing need. It is because of the viability issue but the Government is effectively saying it does not exist outside of apartments.

I want to speak about spending in respect of IPAS. The Minister is overseeing a budget of €1.2 billion of taxpayers' money in terms of IPAS centres. Last week the Comptroller and Auditor General found so many issues involving lack of governance and a failure to manage the public purse in this regard. It is an enormous amount of money. It is absolutely shocking to see the Minister taxing ordinary Irish families on relatively low incomes at almost 50% while at the same time allowing a budget to balloon to €1.2 billion with so little oversight and management of that budget. We read this morning of a horrendous situation last night in the Citywest Hotel where an alleged incident took place-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Deputy, relevance to the budget.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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-----of the most egregious nature, of a young girl who was raped-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Deputy-----

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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-----by an alleged asylum seeker-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Deputy, cease. Keep your debate relevant to the budget.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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-----who had received a deportation order.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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You are not speaking about the budget.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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We have raised this on so many occasions.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Your time is up now, Deputy. We will move to Deputy Paul Gogarty at this stage.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I am speaking about the mismanagement of the budget funds in terms of IPAS centres.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Deputy, sit down. We will move to Deputy Paul Gogarty now.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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It is budget-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Sit down, Deputy.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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-----overspend in relation to this.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Deputy, sit down. I call Deputy Gogarty.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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We are waiting to see whether Deputy Fitzmaurice comes in or whether we can use his time allocated in our slot. My colleague tells me we can use the time. Deputy Lawless got to use some of it and I will use some as well, with the permission of the Acting Chair.

This is another chance to talk about the budget overall, although we are looking at the specific measures in the Bill itself. I support the calls by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, as I have before, that we need to start tightening up a little bit because we cannot be too dependent on corporate tax receipts. This was done in the context of a giveaway budget last year, so the contrast is quite huge. Even within that overall framework, there was scope to help those with cost-of-living issues. It has been estimated that up to 300,000 households could fall into arrears without the reliefs continuing. As various groups have mentioned, the budget does not adequately address child poverty issues or supports for persons with disabilities. Where would the Minister have got that money? The €250 million in VAT on the sale of apartments would have made a little bit of a dent. I have said it previously and will say it again that I do not think this is going to reduce the price of apartments. The fact that it is coming in for ones that have already started is ludicrous. That said, the enhanced corporation tax deduction for apartment construction expenses makes a little bit of sense. I am trying to take a balanced approach to this.

The tax deduction of 125% for certain apartment construction costs the Minister is introducing to help address viability challenges makes more sense, subject to the cap of €50,000 per apartment. We do not know whether it is going to hit the cost savings of up to €6,250 per unit but it does make a lot more sense than the VAT on the sale of apartments. The fact that it is going up to December 2030 with the relief claimable upon completion, we will see in the round whether that has been any kind of help in pushing prices down.

Another measure I am supportive of, which has been mentioned in the media in terms of lack of take-up, is the living city initiative. It needs to be expanded or turned into something else for the over-the-shop units in rural towns and villages where post offices are closing and banks are moving out. There is a lot of property stock there that could be regenerated. I said earlier in the year that if those on a housing list in any of the four local authorities in Dublin go down the country, they lose their place on the list. If a person could go to a rural town for three to five years and go back on the Dublin list if they did not like it, we might get a few more takers. It is definitely worth looking at.

While we are on the subject of rural areas, I will mention the policy of trying to encourage software companies to spread around the country, which they are resisting. As a result, all the high earners are in Dublin and it is pushing up the prices for the people who grew up there and those on the affordable housing scheme. In areas like software localisation, in particular, we need to tell companies that if they want to bring in people from outside to work, they must do it on our terms and in areas where there is more scope for housing stock to be released.

I also want to support the amendment of the section and the residential development stamp duty refund scheme. Again, I give credit where credit is due. There are a number of other measures I mentioned before. The EVs makes a lot of sense. While I note there is an investment coming for the charging infrastructure, it is simply not sufficient in terms of the main thoroughfares. We are still doing nothing for people in housing estates where they should be able to put a cable under the footpath out onto the public road and charge it at a domestic rate. If people cannot charge their EVs at a domestic rate, any kind of continuation of an EV VAT relief is not going to help in any way, shape or form. I again welcome the 9% VAT rate extended for gas and electricity but am ambivalent about the 9% rate for the hospitality sector because it is hitting the bigger companies as well. It is much too beneficial. I thought the supports for businesses, such as the power-up grants, could have been more targeted, expanded and helped all those businesses in the same way while leaving Ronald McDonald out of the equation.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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By the agreement of the House, I request that we take a sos for three minutes. The Minister needs to pop out.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The Minister has rejoined us. I call Deputy Emer Currie.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Budget 2026 has come at a time of global uncertainty with risks of tariffs and instability on the European Continent. This is a budget that seeks to invest in our future while securing the jobs, prosperity and stability that families and businesses depend on today. I also recognise that the programme for Government outlines progress on issues such as reducing childcare costs and college fees and removing the means test for the carer's allowance over multiple budgets. While these are longer term commitments, it is important we continue to take concrete steps each year to ensure families, carers and students see steady improvements in reducing the cost of vital services as well as the expansion of key supports for those who need them most.

I take the opportunity to raise the issue of the deemed disposal for exchange traded funds, ETFs. Over recent months, many of my hardworking constituents have highlighted this rule as a significant barrier to effective financial planning. At a time when we should be encouraging responsible long-term saving and investment, the current system acts as a disincentive. I welcome the reduction in the exit tax rate announced in the budget from 41% to 38% but until we remove the deemed disposal rule, the problem remains.

As the Minister will know, the funds sector 2030 review recommends the removal of the eight-year deemed disposal rule for Irish-domiciled funds and life assurance products and the alignment of tax rates for investment undertakings with the standard capital gains tax rate. The difficulty with deemed disposal is clear. After eight years, investors face a tax liability on unrealised gains, often forcing them to sell part of their holding to meet the bill. This not only reduces their position in the fund but also undermines the power of compounding the very principle that underpins long-term investing. Alternatively, if investors set aside cash in advance, that money is denied the chance to generate additional returns. In both cases, a real opportunity cost arises. Removing deemed disposal would address this inefficiency and improve outcomes for savers. A further inequality lies in the treatment of loses. Under the capital gains tax regime, investors can offset loses against gains, reducing their overall liability. Under the exit tax applied to ETFs, however, no such offset is allowed. As a result, ETFs are less tax efficient than individual shares in a mixed portfolio despite their broader diversification benefits.

The issue must also be seen in the wider economic context. According to the Central Bank, Irish households held €162 billion in deposits at the beginning of 2025. In an environment of inflation and modest interest rates, these savings are steadily losing value. Redirecting even a portion of this capital into productive investment through ETFs would support households, deepen our capital markets and benefit the wider economy.

I also welcome the commitment in the budget to publish a funds review roadmap in the new year. Building on the implementation plan for the funds sector 2030 review, I ask the Minister to ensure, as part of this roadmap, the operation of the deemed disposal rule is examined in detail, with a view to delivering a fairer and more effective framework for long-term retail investment. I would very much welcome the response of someone with his vast experience on ETFs. I have put quite a bit of work into researching it but I know the Minister's insights will be very valuable for my response to constituents who have raised this issue with me in detail.

Reforming this area is not simply a technical adjustment. It is about giving ordinary savers the confidence to invest, ensuring their money works harder for them and for Ireland. By modernising the rules and treating ETF investors on the same basis as other asset holders, we can foster a stronger culture of long-term saving, deepen our domestic capital markets, and, ultimately, deliver more resilient growth for the State. I thank the Minister.

John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for the work he and the Minister, Deputy Chambers, have done over recent weeks and months in relation to this budget but also the work the Minister has done since 2017 when he took office in the Department of Finance. The certainty he has brought to the country and to the economy cannot be taken for granted. I am very conscious that when it comes to budget time, there are no easy decisions and budgets are about choices.

At a time of such geopolitical uncertainty, we cannot simply take our economy for granted. With some of the commentary I hear in debates in this Chamber, I feel like there is a money tree or an open chequebook. The prudence the Minister has brought to our budgets is welcome and necessary. As we go forward in year one of this new Government, his focus on infrastructure and on those in society who are hard pressed is welcome.

There is a regular emphasis in this Chamber on housing, energy and water, but we cannot forget about civic society in terms of the wraparound services in education, healthcare, recreational amenities and so on. It is very important in any conversation we frame that we talk about the billions of euro around housing, wastewater, the energy grid and so on, but we need to ensure that we are also having a conversation about increasing the pace of delivery around all those other services and that we continue to control the controllables, which the Minister has done. I acknowledge the difficult decision he has taken in relation to the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. The easiest thing is to spend money, but he has proven, as per his reputation, that when we have had shocks we have been ready for them. Looking at what happened in relation to the Covid pandemic, we invested €48 billion in our country, in our workers and in our businesses to ensure we could spring forward. It is very important that this does not come from current spending. We have seen this happen in other jurisdictions. We have to get the message out there that we need to be prepared for such future challenges rather than just going straight to the profit and loss of the country or to the Exchequer to support them.

In terms of those who are hard pressed, I welcome the measures the Minister has taken in relation to the fuel allowance and the VAT rate of 9% on energy bills. They are both targeted and will support those who are most hard pressed. I would say there is not a Member of this House who did not meet a schoolteacher or a principal in the lead-up to the budget or during the election campaign who did not talk about capitation in schools. We have delivered on that and we need to build on it over the years ahead.

Carers play such an important role in our society. They are priceless in many regards, and increasing eligibility to ensure that more people can apply must be continued in the budgets ahead. We must continue on that trajectory also in relation to school meals, the clothing and footwear allowance and schoolbooks, again providing support where it is needed most.

When I listen to some of the commentary that this was a budget for the rich or the elite, I really wonder where some people are living. The Minister brought in a VAT rate of 9% for hospitality and hairdressers. I come from a pub in a small rural village. I have heard some of the commentary that this will close down, it will be a wipe out and so on. I do not necessarily agree. I think it will lead to difficult decisions. People in the industry are looking forward to July 2026, when they will get a level of respite. There is concern about the cost of labour and auto-enrolment, which will come into force in January, but I do not think they will close. I do think they will make difficult decisions. They might leave one shift off the roster, work later into the evening themselves or cut their own wages. It is important that we and the Government ensure that measures around energy, insurance and labour are continually monitored. I do not think the fact that we have just delivered on the VAT rate of 9% is the end of it now; we have to continue to engage with these sectors. I know the likes of small pubs will have lobbied considerably for something around excise, but we need to look at this now on a case-by-case basis as to how we can tailor some sort of initiative for sectors. I fully appreciate, in relation to the likes of the increased cost of business grant, that this had to be done on a broad level rather than bringing the knife down somewhere, with people on the right side and people on the wrong side of a decision, which provides uncertainty at a time when we need predictability.

There is so much on deposit. Deputy Currie has touched on this. Between overseas and household savings, we are looking at in excess of €200 billion. I welcome the Minister's announcement in the budget about an action plan to reform Ireland's tax regime for interest, but we need to figure out whether we can tap into this by some means.

As regards green investment or green bonds, it is fair to say that not everybody is convinced that renewables are the way forward. Maybe we need to look at some sort of initiative whereby we can give people buy-in to what is essentially a future. I talked at the outset about grid infrastructure. We have to expedite delivery in that area. We talk about energy bills and the cost of energy. The reality is an overreliance on gas. We have the opportunity to overcome that through onshore wind, offshore wind, solar and battery storage, but it also needs investment in our grid. It is important that we look at ways and means we can provide to tap into those savings. It would essentially be cheap capital for the State, a secure investment for households and, possibly, a guaranteed return. I ask the Minister to explore that.

Just transition has been very difficult in my county. We lost Shannonbridge power station essentially overnight, with a grant to compensate for the loss of associated commercial rates to the amount of €1.7 million for the local authority annually. I ask that the Minister commit to that again for 2026 and that we can start exploratory talks about how to continue it, not necessarily for 2027, 2028 and 2029, but we need to figure out how we can phase it out rather than going from €1.7 million to zero over the years ahead.

Overall, I welcome the budget. I appreciate the work the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Chambers, have done. For anyone who debates this with me, we need to be mindful that this is the first budget of five. It is the first chapter of a five-chapter book. It is important in the years ahead that we continue that delivery around infrastructure, housing and all those important elements but also that we look after workers. It is essential that in the budgets ahead there be an element of recognition from an income tax perspective. I have had many discussions with the Minister on that. I am sure he is committed to it, but I just wanted to put that on the record.

Gillian Toole (Meath East, Independent)
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As many others have said, this is the first budget of five. We will not all be happy. There are pros and cons to everything. Fundamentally, to try to balance books, deliver fairness and target assistance to the areas that are most necessary and deserving is an almost impossible task. I will acknowledge the targeting of funding towards education, disability matters, healthcare, housing and, hopefully, public transport or transport infrastructure through the national development plan when we get to that stage. They are the key elements of at least giving a fair start across all elements of society such that everybody will get a fair start. What is done beyond that and how that is enabled is most important.

The increase in the income disregard for carers has to be acknowledged as a move towards abolition of the means test, as referenced in the programme for Government, which, again, like the budgetary process, is a five-year plan.

There are a couple of areas I wish to pick out. There is scope for further expansion and benefit in the second year, the third year and so on. I refer to regeneration, the targeting of over-the-shop living and dealing with dereliction and vacancy. As I walk even from here to Busáras at night or into Leinster House in the mornings on the return journey, there are second, third, fourth and fifth floors of buildings that are ripe city-centre locations providing passive surveillance. There could be targeting for different professionals, be they gardaí, student nurses or older people at ground-floor level, where sustainable communities close to services can be developed. Pilot projects were carried out successfully in the early nineties around the country, most notably in Temple Bar, even with its pluses and minuses. The learning may already be there, and perhaps there is even scope for fast-tracking and increasing the roll-out. There are areas of County Meath - for example, Kells and a couple of small areas like Dunshaughlin - where, again, it would be a matter of strengthening that community environment and providing targeted housing opportunities for different age groups and different career groups.

I welcome a matter that is of particular interest to me, having been a small business owner. Whether we are running the family home or a small business, accountability, efficiency and productivity are key. If we can manage the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves.

I welcome the forthcoming review of public finance procedures. I hope to God there will be very prudent use of data for targeted forward planning for budgets Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5. Tightening up of expenditure management rules and how they apply to the different Government Departments will be absolutely critical and pivotal to future success. I have to say it is infuriating from time to time if I listen in to the Committee of Public Accounts or I read through the C and AG report about missed targets and overspending. Then we hear from chief executives of certain organisations that people have moved on and the funding is irrecoverable. I hope the public finance procedures, review and strengthening of rules will all contribute to further latitude for improved budgetary measures and that all of the other areas that were not necessarily met in this budget can be serviced in Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 by just tightening up on our management.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for being here this evening to hear our requests. We need to thank him for the money that has been allocated. People will say there is a budget every day but the budget is about being fair. I know that Government has tried to do its best and to be as fair as possible.

There is a complaint out there in a lot of people's minds that the working-class people, workers with rising costs and everything, were maybe left behind a bit and we need to address the issues of housing. People who want to build their own houses are having severe difficulty.

I will start off with health. In Killarney, we have a new district hospital. It is built. When you allocate all this money to the HSE, it is about following up where the money is going and how it is spent in the individual sectors the HSE is in charge of. We have a new community hospital built in Killarney and the question is, when is it going to open? So much else is dependent on it. We need a primary care centre in Killarney and the grounds are there. If the old district hospital is closed down and patients go into the new one, and the St. Columbanus Home is closed down and is part of the new community hospital, they can be used for things like the primary care centre.

A minor injuries clinic is vital for Killarney. At times, there could be up to 10,000 people in Killarney during the summertime and with regard the amount of pressure that is on the general hospital in Tralee and the accident and emergency at different times, much of that burden could be lightened if we had the minor injuries clinic in Killarney. I am asking seriously for that.

On respite, I have raised respite here several times in this debate already. I feel for the families who are caring for either a brother, sister, mother or father or someone in the family and they cannot get away for one week in the summertime like everybody else, and they really deserve it. While we appreciate what is being done for carers, there should be no means test applied when you are caring for someone. It will be done in the course of this Government and we hope that it will because we have so much need for carers. The country depends so much on carers. The burden on the health budget would be much increased if we do not see after them. When you are a carer, you are actually living the life of the person you are caring for because you have to build your days, hours and minutes around those people. We are not valuing them half enough.

On self-employed people, one part of the jigsaw for them - it has been promised for many years - is when they get sick, they have no allowance or help to look forward to and they have to try and keep the wheels turning, whether it is the wife or the family. We need to see after those people because they are employing workers and keeping their individual projects going. I fear for those people. I am told that even if you have public liability for all your employees, you are actually not covered at all yourself. You cannot get public liability to cover yourself if you are the operator or the man in charge running whatever business it is. You are not covered by public liability yourself.

We could do a lot for housing. In Kerry, there are simple things. We cannot get planning because of this strict urban-generated pressure rule that is depriving so many people who are building houses in their own land. Farmers' sons and daughters are accommodated and listened to but their neighbours next door out in the country, who never lived in a town, are being deprived of planning permission. This would not cost the Government anything. In actual fact, it will get money out of it because the materials they will buy and the tax they will create - income tax or whatever from fellows working - will generate rather than cost money.

Likewise, have over 100 km of national primary routes going through our county. You cannot access a new site, even through an existing entrance, because of the rule that is there since 2012. It was the Minister's predecessor, Leo Varadkar, who brought that in when he was Minister for transport in 2012. On affordable houses in Kerry, we do not have that scheme in Kerry. God almighty, it costs the same to build a house in Kerry as anywhere else and maybe a lot more at times because some parts of Kerry are very remote. It takes a long time, if the Minister can imagine, to go from Killarney to Dingle. It is an hour and a quarter, and the same from Killarney to Cahersiveen, which is another hour and a quarter. If you go back to Valentia Island, it is another three quarters of an hour beyond that and down into the heart of Ballinskelligs there are awful journeys. People are doing great to live in these places at all because they are far away from services. To buy anything, they have to travel half the country. If we came from a place like Deputy Willie Aird, in the middle of the country, if he travelled 75 miles in any direction he would have the whole of the country practically covered but that is not the case in Kerry.

We have a problem in Kenmare. No estate for private housing has been built there in 20 years. The first problem we had was there was not a treatment plant. You could get one-off houses all right, or the local authority got permission to build a few houses but because of our treatment plant being overburdened, there was no permission. Lo and behold now, we have two applications pending, with 169 houses in total. They went out for further information and the question is, where are they going to get the water? I hear that money has been given to Uisce Éireann and I am appealing to the Government to get around this, put shoulders to the wheel and ensure this permission is granted and Uisce Éireann provides the water. They cannot move; the local authority will not give the permission if the volume of water is not increased. I ask the Government to look at that.

We thank the Government for the reduction in the VAT for hospitality. The Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, and I fought very hard for this for the town of Killarney and the impact around the Ring of Kerry. With the great hospitality product we have in our county, we are the leaders in tourism, I would say. I do not think anyone would contradict us on that. We need to protect that for the amount of workers and all that is at stake for the spin-off and the whole lot. We need to keep that. I thought it could be brought in at the start of January.

I am disappointed that it is not and that we have to wait until July. I do not know if all the businesses can hang on. They are thankful for the proposal and hope they can hang on until it comes into place.

I am disappointed with the way vacant houses are being dealt with. I see someone paying rent and the owner of the house only has one or two houses, they do not have a company or anything, and they finish up paying 50% tax. There is no enticement in that. The other problem they have is, if they want their house back in a year or two, they are worried they cannot get them back. We have houses all around us that are vacant and here we are putting a tax on vacant properties. There is an old saying that you cannot get blood out of a turnip. If it is the case that landlords cannot see it is worthwhile to put money into a house, the house depreciates, and it is no longer a vacant house, but becomes a derelict house. I thought we could have a separate tax for rental, which they have in other countries, like 20% rather than these people paying 50%. If the house stays vacant, the Minister will get 0%. I want the Government to look at that.

We have the Ukrainians. It is a great scheme where they are getting €600 paid tax free to the landowner to house them. Can we do something like? We must see after our own people, too. I am asking the Government to look at this because there is any number of vacant houses out there and any amount of people could be housed if we went at it right. I am asking the Government to look at this because the houses are there, which is half the battle, but getting people into them is the other part of it. There is work on that. We will work with the Government if it goes after something like that because the houses are there. We would help tell the story to the house owners and get them to bite the biscuit.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Before the Minister concludes, I welcome our guests from America but, particularly, Ms Ellen O'Connor, who has been studying here and who graduated on Monday. Congratulations. I call the Minister to conclude the debate.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I want to thank all the Deputies who contributed on this debate. I have stayed for all of Second Stage to hear the different views that have been raised and I look forward to dealing with these matters in more detail on Committee Stage, beginning in two weeks.

I will now deal with some of the different charges and debates around the Finance Bill. As some speakers have recognised, this is the first of five budgets this Government will bring in. This budget aims to lay the foundations through a higher level of investment within our economy that, I believe, will provide the support our economy needs to regain some of the growth and some of the jobs that would have been lost by the very uncertain environment we are now in. When I talk about things like our economy or growth, that has a very human face for me. I am referring to the households that depend on jobs. I am referring to those who use our public services and work in our public services, who need a stable and growing economy from which we can fund those public services and support, particularly, our most vulnerable.

The key feature of this budget is one not particularly referenced within the Finance Bill itself because it is a spending measure. That feature is the degree to which overall investment in our economy has now moved up to over €19 billion per year. That will take effect next year due to the work that has been done in the national development plan. That is, in particular, about providing the investment in our water infrastructure and electricity grid that is essential to allow more homes to be built in the years ahead. I make all those points regarding budget 2026 overall because it influences every single one of the decisions that have been made with regard to taxation in the Finance Bill 2025. The Bill itself contains over €1 billion in tax measures. As has been well documented and debated up to this point, the Bill does not include measures with regard to personal taxation. If our economy remains strong - budget 2026 is part of the investment that is needed to support growth within our economy - it is my intention to bring forward changes on personal taxation as I have done in many, though not all, of the other budgets I have been involved in. I would make the case that it is vital that we stand by a view regarding overall tax changes within our economy being at a certain level. If I was to bring forward all of the measures included in this budget with regard to business taxation and add to those changes in personal taxation as well, that would have brought the overall size of this budget up to around €10.5 billion, if not more. That is simply a budget that would be too big and would pose risks in terms of how we can pay for this in the future. I appreciate that, at a time when the cost of living is still a challenge for so many and I hear, as every other TD in this House does, the challenges people have in getting by, this is a difficult argument for people to accept at a time during which they are worried about the rising cost of living in front of them. However, if we are going to have the ability to continue to help budget by budget and to continue to put in place measures that are permanent, that we can afford and that we can sustain, our budgets overall need to be of a certain size and need to involve us making choices within that. That is the case I have made in bringing forward this budget, and it is the case I will be making even more strongly when we move on to Committee Stage, because the accumulation of many of the different measures I have been called on to do here this evening would mean a lower surplus or maybe no surplus at all, which would then involve using the corporate tax receipts that many speakers have said there could be a risk on over time. I firmly believe that would be the wrong thing to do, given all the risks our country is currently facing.

Regarding the living city initiative, I heard a number of different views on it this evening asking why I expanded it to five different cities and why I did not expand it into other towns, villages and cities across our country. The reason for that is because of the national planning framework. I have now extended it to the next layer of cities where this is seen as being important for their further development, the further economic development of our country and the delivery of more homes. I am trying to ensure that the development of the living city initiative happens in a way that is consistent with our overall national planning framework.

With regard to the VAT reduction on apartments, the only reason I am bringing forward this measure is to allow more homes to be built. Charges have been made here that this is about supporting big developers and it is about adding to profitability. The only reason I am bringing forward this measure is to lead to more homes being built and to try to improve the viability challenge that is most acute around the delivery of apartments. I heard some calls here this evening and some points being made regarding the degree to which this benefits apartments that have already been built. I accept that is a consequence of how this measure has been brought forward. However, it is not possible to have a tax that is consumption based, that is, paid at the point the transaction or purchase happens, and at the same time say we will have a different tax depending on when an apartment is commenced. We cannot do both. That would breach the principle of fiscal neutrality upon which our tax code is structured. I heard a number of colleagues raise the point regarding the application of this VAT measure with regard to approved housing bodies. At the start of this debate, I acknowledged this was an issue and that, as I consider Committee Stage, I would examine whether there were amendments or changes that were possible as regards that particular matter.

With regard to VAT on hospitality, I heard a number of different views. Some Deputies want the change to happen more quickly. It would not be possible to do that and still deliver a budget of the overall size I believe gives us some prospect of the budget being safe and consistent with the framework we published earlier in the year. Bringing it forward in the summer tries to get the balance right.

On the other hand, I heard some Deputies say we should exclude businesses of a certain size and heard particular businesses mentioned as an example of that. VAT law does not allow for the exclusion of businesses based on turnover and the vast majority of businesses in the hospitality sector in our country are small or medium sized. A small number of businesses are large. Some of the businesses quoted during the debate exist on the base of franchises and, therefore, are run by people in their communities. All of these businesses employ people whose jobs I am trying to protect and sustain in the time ahead. There are 150,000 such employees. The hospitality sector continues to be very important in our economy and how we can better support that sector in the future is important at a time when we will bring forward measures to support larger employers.

With regard to larger employers, the research and development tax credit is being approved in order to support innovation in our economy. In turn, that innovation is at the heart of how we can keep the jobs we have in larger employers and create more. That is the final reason I am making changes with regard to the special assignee relief programme, SARP.

I was interested to hear a number of Deputies raise issues regarding deemed disposal and ETFs. It is welcome to hear an issue like this being debated in the Dáil. I did not make a further change on deemed disposal because of the cost involved. It would be a very significant measure. I made other changes to support investment and reduce some of the taxes that people pay in that area. Overall, how we support investment and savings in our economy is an important area that we need to do more on in the time ahead.

That is a quick overview of the different matters raised. I look forward to dealing with them in more detail on Committee Stage.