Author: Money & Living Desk

Every public holiday left in 2026, all ten for 2027, and the official school breaks for 2026/27. Plus your rights at work and how to get the most days off for the least annual leave. The numbers10public holidays in Ireland each year7long weekends from public holidays in 2027182minimum school days for primary schools16 daysschool Easter break 2027, 20 March to 4 April Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day 2027 both fall on a weekend. Irish law gives you no automatic right to take the Monday or Tuesday off instead. You still get a benefit for each day, but it may…

Many eligible renters have never claimed. The credit runs to the end of 2028 and can be backdated.The Rent Tax Credit is worth €1,000 a year to a single renter and €2,000 to a jointly assessed couple. It was extended to the end of 2028 in Budget 2026. It was reported that a further increase, mooted at €300, is pretty much over the line for Tuesday’s Budget. If confirmed, that would take the credit to €1,300 and €2,600 from 2027.Who can claimYou must be paying rent for your own home, or for a property you use to attend work or…

The season began at the end of September. The payment is €38 a week. The Minister has signalled an expansion for older people.The Fuel Allowance season for 2026/27 began in the last week of September and runs for 28 weeks into April 2027. The rate is €38 a week, following a €5 increase in Budget 2026. It is paid with the recipient’s main welfare payment, or as a lump sum for the half-season on request.Who qualifiesFuel Allowance is for people on long-term welfare payments who live alone or only with others who also qualify. The main qualifying payments include the…

The minister has ruled out both. Child Support Payments and the Working Family Payment are where the money is going.Two things have been confirmed about Budget 2027 and children. Child Benefit, paid at €140 a month per child to every family regardless of income, is not expected to increase. And the long-promised second tier, a means-tested top-up for lower-income households, will not be introduced this year. Social Protection Minister Dara Calleary has said so directly.Why notChild Benefit costs around €2.2 billion a year, and a €10 monthly increase would add roughly €150 million. The Government’s stated priority is reducing child…

Government sources describe Tuesday’s change as a statement of intent rather than a major reform. Here is the starting point.Capital Acquisitions Tax is charged at 33% on gifts and inheritances above a tax-free threshold. The threshold depends on the relationship between the person giving and the person receiving, and the thresholds are lifetime limits, not per-gift amounts.The current thresholdsGroup A covers children inheriting from a parent, and the threshold is €400,000. Group B covers brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and other lineal relatives, at €40,000. Group C covers everyone else, including partners who are not married or in a civil…

Among the few Budget 2027 measures confirmed before the day itself is a boiler scrappage grant worth €2,000. RTÉ reported on 29 September that it will be available from early 2027 and paid in addition to the SEAI heat pump grant, not instead of it.What it is forThe grant is aimed at households replacing an oil or gas boiler with a heat pump. The policy logic is straightforward: around 700,000 Irish homes heat with oil, and the Government’s climate targets depend on moving a large share of them to electric heating this decade. The scrappage payment is an incentive to…

The main rate went from 2.4% to 2.65% in September, the second increase this year. Tracker customers feel it immediately. Everyone else feels it later.The European Central Bank raised its main refinancing rate from 2.4% to 2.65% in September, the second quarter-point increase of 2026. For tracker mortgage holders the effect arrives with the October repayment: roughly €13 a month more for every €100,000 outstanding.The numbersA tracker customer with €150,000 remaining over 10 to 15 years is paying about €30 a month more than before the two rises, roughly €400 a year. Someone with €100,000 outstanding will pay more than…

The employee rate moved from 4.20% to 4.35%. Another step follows in a year. The increases were legislated in 2024 and have nothing to do with Tuesday’s Budget.If your October payslip looks slightly lighter, this is why. Employee PRSI rose from 4.20% to 4.35% on 1 October.This was decided in 2024The increase is part of a roadmap enacted under the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024. All PRSI rates rise by 0.1 of a percentage point in October 2024, a further 0.1 in October 2025, 0.15 in October 2026, 0.15 in October 2027, and 0.2 in October 2028. The purpose…

Bord Gáis moves first, Energia follows three days later. The reasons are in the wholesale market, not in anything the Budget can fix quickly.Two of Ireland’s largest energy suppliers raise their prices this month. Bord Gáis Energy, the country’s biggest gas supplier, increases electricity by 8.8% and gas by 9.3% from Thursday 9 October. For an average customer that is around €177 a year more for electricity and €140 more for gas. Energia, with roughly 290,000 customers, raises electricity by an average of 4.73%, about €87 a year, from Monday 12 October.Why nowBoth suppliers point to the wholesale market. Gas…

RTÉ’s tally of seven months of price rises lands two days before the Budget. Fuel and heating oil account for most of it.Before any Budget measure arrives, it is worth knowing the size of the hole it is meant to fill. An RTÉ analysis published on 27 September put the increase in a typical household’s annual costs since March at €2,141. That figure is not a forecast. It is what has already happened.Where the money wentHome heating oil is the largest single item, up €969 a year. A 500-litre fill now costs close to €800, against roughly €490 at the…