Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THERE WILL BE a record general Government surplus of approximately €25 billion recorded this year.
The massive figure is more than double what was projected and includes the €14 billion windfall fund from Apple’s unpaid tax - all of which will be recorded in the State’s accounts for this year.
This surplus will help Minister for Finance Jack Chambers and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe afford a number of one-off payments in what is expected to be a bumper budget, which they will announce on Tuesday.
A total of €105.4 billion in expenditure is already being made available in Budget 2025.
It includes reported cuts and alterations to USC and income tax bands, increases to the State pension, investment in childcare, transport and infrastructure and expansions and adaptations to existing housing schemes.
But, speaking to reporters this evening, Chambers said he did not expect the planned cost-of-living package to be of the same scale as last year, given that inflation has fallen.
He did acknowledge, however, that there are still impacts as a result of high prices from underlying inflation which he hopes will be targeted through the planned package of supports.
The Department of Finance will publish its ‘White Paper’ this evening, which will project the Government’s tax take and expenses next year. This will give a final view of the State’s expenses ahead of the Budget announcement.
The figures will not include measures to be announced in the Budget.
Though the Apple tax makes up a great portion of the surplus, a record high of €30 billion in corporation taxes to be recieved by the State this year – €5.5 billion more than expected – is what the ministers will be largely reliant on for spending at the Budget.
This is because only €8 billion of the Apple escrow fund will be injected into the exchequer this year while the remaining €6 billion will be accrued next year.
For accounting purposes, however, all €14 billion of it will be on the State’s books this year, Chambers explained.
Chambers said Government will not be using the Apple tax fund for day-to-day expenses or to narrow the tax base, but instead the ministers will take “a wider, strategic view” on how it can assist the economy, strengthen competitiveness and invest in infrastructure.
“That has to be done carefully with proper economic assessment, and that’s why we’ll be careful in the management of that,” he said.
He added that the “strategic direction” of the use of the Apple money will be announced on Tuesday.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Billions surplus, so why is the emergency USC still robbing people’s pay packets especially while govt wasting billions(child hosp overspend, TD gym, security hut, bicycle shed and all the other hidden waste.
@Eddie Garvey:
Personally I would prefer reductions in income taxes.
The one thing in favour of USC is that it’s very difficult to avoid, almost everyone, above a certain income, pays some and it is progressive, the more you earn the higher percentage you pay.
Other taxes have had so many loopholes, reliefs and concessions built in over the years that a skilled accountant can avoid too much.
@Eddie Garvey: Run in the next election Eddie I am sure you will get it sorted and none of us will pay text,but somehow the health service, schools , collegs7 and social housing will be provided
@P. J.: You may have a point, but by having multiple ways of taxing, they tend to give with one hand and take with another and do nothing or make things worse.
@Peter Byrne: Change the record ffs. You don’t need to be running for elected office just to give your tuppence-worth on the journal comments section
25 billion that could’ve been spent on housing but FFG would rather young people leave the country rather than fix the issues
How many Irish emigrants are allowed to move abroad before it’s time to close the borders
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: There’s 7 billion in the housing budget this year. Probably more next year. There has been billions in previous years back to 2019 when they started to take housing seriously. There’s not enough builders to build what’s needed demand wise. They also need land and to go through the planning process so that 25 billion thats the surplus for THIS year couldn’t have been spent on housing.
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: so where are you finding the builders
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: you haven’t a clue
@Peter Byrne: we have same numbers in construction now as pre crash when 50/70000 homes per year were built
@North Phone Bowe:
And a completely different standard of housing.
@P. J.: building spec may have changed some but if your suggesting that is responsible for a drop of 80000 to20000 then you are completely delusional
@North Phone Bowe:
Still waiting for you to tell me where all these builders are that are going to double output as soon as we change government..
Are they hiding in special underground bunkers?
The problem is they OVERSPEND and need to increase income tax as high as it is now, on top of all other taxes, it’s us who create this ‘surplus’, and not a dent in housing will be made, we need a housing revolution, we need a Housing Party
@9QRixo8H:
I actually had my first election canvasser call to the house recently (can’t say he wasn’t out early enough!!) and I just asked him one question, same one I will ask every caller,
Where are they going to find the builders?
(Regardless of how many houses they are promising).
FYI the canvasser looked down and to his left and started to waffle about it been a problem alright and something needs to be done……
I closed the door.
@9QRixo8H: They haven’t increased income tax in a long time. Since just after the crash. They reduced it slightly last year….. The problem now is not only are we still paying austerity taxes, the tax credits and thresholds haven’t increased much with all the inflation so any pay increases are being swallowed by the govt. They are making massive income tax and vat hauls on the back of massive inflation and lots of pay rises. Because they are taking in so much their departmental budgets are increasing to spend it while we get little tax relief during the massive inflation and cost of living crisis! Shocking really! But not surprising. Sounds like we’ll get breadcrumbs again in this next budget!
@P. J.: as per the latest census there is the same number employed now in construction as there was in 2004 when we were building 80,000 homes per annum.
@PJ: To find builders, we need immigrants. We have very little population density. Doctors and dentists won’t open business in low populated areas, which is in many rural Ireland
@9QRixo8H: No. No we don’t.
More immigration just means more demand for housing, for education, for health care, for child care, for…
Exacerbating the already horrendous problems in those areas.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: more immigrants is more taxes, more builders, more density in populated-deprived rural Ireland, more productivity, more resources. People is what we need in this world.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: If you want more house built yearly where do the builders needed come from. They don’t build themselves!
@9QRixo8H: @another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec: If there were, say, 200,000 fewer people here tomorrow then we would not have a housing shortage, a shortage of school classrooms, a shortage in hospital beds, and so on.
Adding 200,000 people would only make those problems worse.
What you both advocate for is a pyramid scheme, where we need ever more people to solve the problems caused by ever more people.
@9QRixo8H: circa half the homeless figure is made up of immigrants (not including the ones in direct provision) and you think adding more will solve the housing problem. That’s some mental gymnastics.
@P. J.: They are in for some reception at doors, I am looking forward to it.
@9QRixo8H: so the solution is to keep the pyramid going, no the world doesn’t need more people, have you any concept of how overpopulation and all that goes with it is destroying the planet. Ireland is not underpopulated, yes there were more people living here 2 hundred years ago when the vast majority lived in poverty, 10 to a leaky cottage made of mud, toiling to try and eek out a way of living but largely enriching their British masters, so in a country where their is a housing shortage, HSE in crisis, prisons full, transport system on its knees, your solution is to increase the population to put more pressure on everything, wow, genius, wish I’d thought of that.
@Eddie Garvey: who do you think gives us all this tax? We need more immigrants for more tax, more workers, more builders, more resources. Rural Ireland is deprived because there are not enough people to setup a doctors office, and why would a doctor setup an office there if no one is living there. More people is what we need
@Niall English:
Fair point but talk to builders that were active back in 2004 and talk to them about the difference in building standards over those 20 years
You could build a semi D that time for €80-€90 per sq ft, now it’s €300 (both outside Dublin) some of that is natural inflation but most is the increase in regulation and insulation standards.
All the extra air tightness etc cost a lot of money and more importantly, adds a lot of labour.
Add in the number of builders tied up in retrofitting insulation to existing stock because of the grants involved and you have a lot of builders who are not actually building.
@9QRixo8H: These builders, nurses, whatever are not going to move to rural Ireland because there are no jobs in rural Ireland. If the services can’t cope with the current population when we have a record surplus(that’s money , we have more than we can spend) then how is increasing the population going to improve these services. If a nurse from India moves here with her family (and I’m grateful she does because our nurses are leaving in search of a better career/life), how does that improve our situation. It will deffo be good news for landlords and developers as they can charge more.
@Eddie Garvey: how will you get services without these nurses, builders?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere:
We have had a housing shortage for the last ten years but only a immigration issue for the last two years.
D. Peadar is right, the only way it would be solved is immigrant builders just like we did 20 years ago when we imported hundreds of thousands of Eastern European builders.
Problem with that is we are now competing with the whole developed world for those builders now.
Personally I think the housing crisis will be here for at least 20 years or more, regardless of who we elect because the solutions that might work are political suicide.
@P. J.: Incorrect.
We had an enormous increase in population after the year 2000. In a few short years the population suddenly had more Polish speakers that Gaelic speakers.
Our housing crisis – and other crises – began then.
This sudden huge population increase played its significant part in the housing bubble, and the collapse of the economy which followed.
And from which we have never recovered.
@P. J.: The numbers are based on a survey of the construction sector and indicate that the absolute number of people at work in construction in 2022 was closing in on the peak years of the building boom in 2006 and 2007 when the construction workforce peaked at 210,000. There is your answer from a SF canvasser. It is a myth and falsehood that the construction sector cannot handle much needed home building.
@North Phone Bowe:
I work in the sector!
Bottom line any trades or building professional in Ireland is working at the moment and we are building 30,000 units, SF wants to increase it to 60,000 (FFG an only slightly less ridiculous 50,000)
You want to double the number for units per year.
How?
@9QRixo8H: organise a revolution Peadar, we will all be there
@P. J.: 812
2001 52,602
2002 57,695
2003 68,819
2004 76,954
2005 85,957
2006 88,419
2007 78,027
2008 51,724
Housing units built pre crash. So if construction workers numbers are similar then something else is hindering home building. That hindrance is simply down to FFG policies. No other reason.
@9QRixo8H: you manage what we have, Ryanair bought an entire estate, it’s lying empty, property funds are buying entire developments to fund pension schemes in Canada and elsewhere, some are rented out and some are left empty as they go up in value. This has to stop.
Hospitals are there, the money is there to staff them, but they only lifted the morotorium on hiring a couple of months ago despite the population exploding in the last two years. If we don’t waste the resources we have, there is not a problem. If you pay nurses what they are worth they’ll stay, if you don’t you have to take nurses from countries that need them and they and their families move here and put more strain on the system. Manage what we have. There are 10s of thousands of empty homes in this country, as we have seen lately (children’s hosp, bike shed, security hut, OPW pr contract etc, etc) our govt are making a balls out of managing what we have.
@North Phone Bowe:
I asked you a simple question, if all your builders are busy, your output is 30,000, how are you going to double output?
As regards historical output, the builders of Ireland would be more than happy to revert back to the lax regulation and insulation standards of 2008 and we would undoubtedly increase output, I’d that SFs plan?
Maybe Piory Hall’s builder has been welcomed back into the party fold.
@P. J.: in a housing emergency we re direct the work force to solving that emergency. With proper regulation enforcement and strict compliance penalties quality and quantity can be achieved.
@North Phone Bowe:
You are waffling like the best of them! FFG would actually be proud of you.
All our builders are working now, so where are the builders needed to double output going to come from?
@P. J.: ha, regulations me bollock! Cowboy builders throwing up anything during the boom, definitely not proper tradespeople. Not much different now. Seen it first hand. Back handers to the engineers to sign them off. Materials absolutely wasted during construction. You would have to look for a tradesman that’s over 50 years old now, because any apprentice in the last 30 years learned the wrong fooking way to do work!!!
@North Phone Bowe: I wouldn’t be using the last boom as a sign of an efficient building sector. There are still a load of builders tied up fixing issues from that period today
It’s easy to say more quality and quantity can be delivered. In reality that won’t happen
I’d say you have some easy solutions for fixing the HSE too
@P. J.: here is none so deaf as those who won’t listen. Spoken like a true FFG fan but pretending not to be. We have a housing emergency and people need homes, not investment streams for gouging profits. A change of government to a SF lead one will work implement the changes needed to redirect that work force towards home building. We have the work force, we have the land banks being held ransom and we have the money. Only Sinn Fein has the Will for the changes needed
@The next small thing: that’s complete bs
One off payments if you claim welfare what about the people who work every day it’s a joke small businesses struggling to keep going and employ people your better off on the dole in this country
@thanks for the beautiful music christy rest in pea: Then just go on the dole if you think that’s such a great life. Go on go on go on….
@Tatjana Kytmannow: he’s got a valid point,you’re obviously on the dole. Why don’t you get a job
@Tatjana Kytmannow: spoken like someone who has no clue. How you supposed to pay a mortgage, car, phone, electric, gas, oil , good , internet while on the dole. Col yourself on.
It’s not the governments surplus. It’s the people of Ireland’s surplus.
@Mark Penny: Well done us on taking in all those multinationals taxes.
Another 14 TDs in the Dail next year to help with workload and their salaries can help put a dent in the extra funds
@Donal Tierney:
And their pensions, and their committee allowances, and the other allowances.
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: why dont you run next election , seeing as you have all the answers
@Peter Byrne: Oh sweet god, please stop that repetitive nonsense. It’s like you’re getting personally offended any time the government are criticised and your only cope is the same inane nonsense. Being on the ballot isn’t a prerequisite for commenting on a news site, pal
Jack telling working people not to build up their hopes, no doubt, those who refuse to work & those arriving here in record numbers will benefit most. He will also allow the record profiteering of Energy, Fuel, Groceries & Insurance companies continue without any tax imposed on them, big business creaming it in Jack’s Ireland. Jack isn’t a wet week in the job & he already has warned those working & keeping the State afloat not to have expectations. Another record for Jack & his Govt this week with a record 4,419 Irish Children homeless, yet we continue to allow record numbers arrive here weekly, exasperating the problem.
Infrastructure projects. That is all.
@honey badger: And no big overspend, have proper budgetary oversight on every project!
@Kevin Lawless: It would be nice. Projects do come in on time and under budget, though. The Macroom bypass is one. Lovely bit of road too!
@honey badger:
To be fair most of the motorways built during the Celtic tiger came in on time and on budget because they had strict contracts, something that seems to have been completely missed with the children’s hospital
@P. J.: The children’s hospital is an unmitigated disgrace. It’s entirely the wrong location, too. Bad start. Atrocious finish. Whenever it does finish. It better be the best hospital in the universe.
@honey badger:
100% agree
To be upfront, I have business interest beside the new children’s hospital so I will directly benefit from where it is, but I also have kids (likely to be too old to use it by the time it’s built!) and I’m acutely aware of what the traffic is like.
Just imagine that if your child is seriously sick
@P. J.: this was pointed out at planning stage, that location would cost children’s lives. But as usual, government and Chi
Had hundreds of paid for professional argue for james site. What hope had the consultants and parents got against lobbyists. Now even worse with diversions through city centre.
@honey badger: Luas was ahead of schedule and under budget.
@honey badger: 8km bypass that cost 280 million.
That 35 million per km
Sure real value for money.
Are you touched in the head
Everyone under 5ft6in is getting an iPhone 3 and a U2 tee shirt. The tiger is back!
Fantastic news. More to spend on free housing for all the illegals currently on their way to our country.
@Gerry Lamont: Yes, those lovely tents must feel just like a free house, especially coming into winter.
BAM will sort that!
Time for them to get rid of the usc tax
@Geordie Mcwilliams: Figure it out yet?!
0.5% on the first €12,012
2% on the next €13,748 (up to €25,760)
4% on the next €44,284 (up to €70,044)
8% on the balance above €70,044
They will waste it guaranteed cut taxes and surprise surprise revenue will actually rise don’t be given out free money makes a mockery of the working Joe
That’s the stuff. Keep it coming. Lash it all in a sovereign wealth fund.
@Argus Romsworth: Hopefully it’s better invested than the 13 billion apple tax was. That lost value!
Giving themselves plenty of pats on the back because of that.
I get extremely nervous seeing a headline of €25 billion and a certain individual in the background photo. I say that given the current bike shed fiasco, Could you not have picked a different photo – unless it was intentional?
Before I die and it’s close a general aliction is here one off the things I promised my self from day one I won’t kill anyone I believe in democracy and you get what you vote for,even do I have never voted for ffg this country, I just want us to find courage and try change
Don’t tell BAM or the childrens hospital will go up another billion
Insert, that’ll buy a few bike shed jokes here. Hilarious
No doubt this is the best government in the history of the state.
@Mary Loftus: hahahaha
Tell me your not serious
They’ll just squander this surplus cash on themselves and let projects go over budget. They are so removed from reality. I wish us as Irish people would rise and protest like the French but in reality most Irish people are just sheep moan do nothing complain and as usual do nothing nothing nothing
That’s 40 billion in the coffers.
The other countries around the world must be wondering what’s going on….
Personally I would spend the surplus on something that favours my own situation but I will say it in a way that sounds morally superior and more worthy. I hope to get lots of thumbs up for saying it too.
Can’t solve a school bus crisis for kids with special needs, no services, no school places. Shameful.
@Rosie Martin: It’s a disgrace how our children who have additional needs are treated in this country. Yes primary schools have started to offer more ASD classes and support, different ball game when you try for secondary. 0 places in 3 local schools for my son. He might be lucky to get shared help from an SNA for an hour a day, he needs more than that.
They need to pay SNAs better, they do such an amazing job and literally can change the outcome of school life for a student.
These figures are unbelievable. The rest of the euro zone is struggling and we’re flying…
Might not be a popular choice but maybe increase HSE contributions to fair deal schemes. Its crippling not just to the resident but to families as well. Even with the fair deal there’s massive money to be paid every month….
We’re minted
Must be some Leprechaun economics going on here, that’s a phenomenal figure, the UK’s was 20% less at just £16.7 billion, this was a £9.2 billion larger surplus than in January 2023 and the largest surplus since monthly records began in 1993.
@Pat Barry: It includes the €14bn apples of course.
The citadel has now reinforced their presence it’s going to be hard now to vote them out now.
Put some towards Waterford Airport !!
@D: why no one uses it ffs
Can the Apple money be used to replenish the pension funds that was raided to bail out the banks
Now watch them waste every penny
Read the headline and thought wow,then I looked at the photo and thought DOH!
Befo
We’re rice, richer that Astronauts
I think we should eliminate a deficit entirely, not a bit or half but say the pensions deficit, that could be completely gone and we could move on to other issues.
Quagmire has plenty of money. Giggity.
have your say