Around half of the corporation tax paid to the Exchequer comes from just three multinational companies. That is the Department of Finance’s own finding, and it sits underneath almost every number in Budget 2027.The budget documents, laid before the Oireachtas on 6 October 2026, forecast a general government surplus of €6.7 billion this year and €9.5 billion in 2027.The same tables tell a second story. The Department estimates that €18.8 billion of this year’s corporation tax, and €22.9 billion of next year’s, is “potentially transitory”: money it cannot be confident will keep arriving. Take it out and the surplus becomes…
Author: Business & Economy
Budget 2027 explainedIreland €766 Budget 2027 is worth €766 to every worker on €46,500 or more. Below that, it’s a staircase. Ireland’s €8.65 billion Budget, announced on 6 October 2026 by Simon Harris and Jack Chambers, widens the tax band, adds €10 a week to welfare and caps childcare fees. Here’s what changes for you, when, and the documents behind it. Find your step on the staircase If you earn € a year, you keep €766 more in 2027: €14.73 a week. I rent privately and pay €480 a month or more Extra take-home pay from Budget 2027 by salary…
When the last Irish credit union was founded in the 1950s, the gap between it and the nearest bank was easy to measure: one would lend to a working person; the other generally would not. Credit unions were built on the principle of common bond, members of a community, a trade, a parish, pooling savings and lending to one another at rates that reflected cost rather than profit.Seven decades later, both credit unions and banks have changed beyond recognition. The banks survived a catastrophic crash, were partly nationalised, returned to private ownership, and are now profitable again in an era…
Every working morning, hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland begin their day by spending money before they have earned a cent. They fill a petrol tank, buy a train ticket, top up a Leap card, pay a parking fee, or load a TFI app. They spend time sometimes an hour each way, sometimes considerably more moving between where they can afford to live and where their employer has chosen to locate.The cost of commuting in Ireland is rarely discussed as a policy issue. It surfaces occasionally in budget debates usually in the context of tax relief or public transport…
For half a century, Ireland’s economic development strategy has rested on a single foundational proposition: that a low corporate tax rate, an educated English-speaking workforce, and membership of the European Union’s single market make Ireland uniquely attractive to multinational companies seeking a European base. The proposition worked. It worked spectacularly well.Ireland today hosts the European headquarters of Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and dozens of other global companies. The multinational sector accounts for roughly two-thirds of Irish corporation tax revenue, a large proportion of goods exports, and a significant share of high-wage employment in sectors from technology…