{"id":500288,"date":"2026-06-15T06:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/500288\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T06:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:11:09","slug":"ministers-trade-unions-and-employers-to-discuss-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/500288\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers, trade unions and employers to discuss Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Employers, trade unions and Government ministers are due to meet in Dublin Castle to discuss their priorities for the Budget in October.<\/p>\n

The Coalition has billed the event ‘Reforming now for a secure future’ and says it will focus on taking actions following its recent long-term forecast, which highlighted expected economic challenges between now and 2065.<\/p>\n

But immediate cost pressures caused by inflation and rising energy prices will be a high priority as Budget preparations get under way.<\/p>\n

The price of electricity and gas is rising for thousands of consumers, inflation is running at 3.6% and the European Central Bank has begun to increase interest rates.<\/p>\n

\"Owen
\nThe ICTU’s Owen Reidy said the Government ‘must stop squandering the corporation tax windfall’<\/p>\n

In a statement ahead of the conference, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions criticised the Government’s move to cut VAT for the hospitality industry at a cost of \u20ac750 million.<\/p>\n

It also attacked the decision to aid the haulage industry earlier this year following nationwide fuel protests.<\/p>\n

The ICTU’s General Secretary Owen Reidy said the Government “must stop squandering the corporation tax windfall and deliver a package of measures that actually supports workers, alongside serious and sustained investment in our public services and infrastructure”.<\/p>\n

He said the organisation is calling for double indexation (raising them in line with inflation) of the tax bands to ensure consistency and fairness, alongside a reduction in the cost of public transport and childcare, and movement on pay-related parent’s benefit.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris will tell the conference: “Successive Budgets have increased the point at which workers enter the higher rate of income tax, helping people keep more of what they earn.<\/p>\n

“As we prepare Budget 2027, we will consider further increases in that threshold as a practical way of ensuring wage growth translates into higher take-home pay.”<\/p>\n

\"Miche\u00e1l
\nThe Taoiseach will say Ireland ‘is adjusting to a world that is fragmenting in geopolitical terms’<\/p>\n

At the National Economic Dialogue, the Department of Finance will highlight the future trends of changing demographics as Ireland’s population ages.<\/p>\n

It will also point to the requirement to decarbonise the economy, the need for investment in digitisation and discuss the effects of deglobalisation, as there is pressure on multinationals to move activities to their home countries.<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin will say that while the economy has proved resilient, Ireland “is adjusting to a world that is fragmenting in geopolitical terms”.<\/p>\n

He will say there are three priorities for Ireland in relation to AI: to increase productivity, improve public services and deliver breakthroughs in science and medicine.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Executive Director of employers group IBEC Fergal O’Brien said it was important for Ireland not to be passive when “it comes to the required workforce transition in the context of AI”.<\/p>\n

He added: “While AI technology itself is not brand new, we are only standing at the foothills of its ultimate transformative potential.”<\/p>\n

The organisation has called on the Government to use the \u20ac2 billion from the State’s national training fund to be deployed for lifelong learning and upskilling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Employers, trade unions and Government ministers are due to meet in Dublin Castle to discuss their priorities for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-500288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}