As we head towards Budget Day, and as budgetary negotiations continue, possible changes to tax bands and their indexation are being mooted by some as solutions to the problem of the rising cost of…
Our pre-budget submission, 'Budget Choices 2022' contains detailed, fully-costed Budgetary packages across more than a dozen policy areas including health, housing, education, welfare, sustainability…
Our pre-budget submission ‘Budget Choices 2022’ outlines why expenditure will have to rise if the housing strategy, the climate change strategy and the revised national development plan are to…
Given the current state of government finances, a review of Ireland’s approach to tax expenditures is urgently needed.
The experience of the last decade has highlighted the centrality of taxation in budget deliberations and to policy development. Taxation plays a key role in shaping Irish society through funding public services, supporting economic activity, and redistributing resources to enhance the fairness of society. Consequently, it is crucial that clarity exist with regard to both the objectives and instruments aimed at achieving these goals.
Budget 2022 offers an opportunity for Government to reform some aspects of the current taxation system in the interests of enhancing fairness and sustainability. Budget 2022 is an opportunity to make some overdue changes which will also provide some additional revenue.
‘Ireland and the Europe 2020 Strategy - A review of the social inclusion aspects of Ireland’s National Reform Programme’ covers three of the five headline targets established in the Europe 2020 Strategy and addressed in the Irish National Reform Programme, namely, employment, education and ‘poverty and social exclusion’. It is the latest in a series that since 2011 has tracked Ireland’s performance on achieving its own targets in the Europe 2020 Strategy.
Social Justice Ireland’s report ‘Ireland and the Europe 2020 Strategy - A review of the social inclusion aspects of Ireland’s National Reform Programme’ has found that overall, current trends in Irish public policy are running counter to the promotion of ‘inclusive growth,’ which is one of the three key priorities which underlie the Europe 2020 Strategy.
Social Justice Ireland’s income model tracks the distributive impact of annual budgets on households across Irish society. As different priorities can be articulated for each Budget, it is useful to bring together the cumulative effect of policy changes across a number of years.
Despite significant progress over the past few months, Ireland remains in a period of enormous uncertainty. Optimistic assumptions point towards a rebound in economic activity and employment from late 2021 or early 2022. Conversely, pessimistic assumptions fear ongoing public health related disruptions and a slow emergence from the Covid-19 crisis. Most likely, the reality lies somewhere in between - but there are limited clues as to where.
