The 2026 Budget is predicated on a slowdown in the economy; GDP growth is projected at 1.0% from a massively revised 10.8% this year, with employment growth slowing to 1.5% from 2.2% and consumer spending rising by 2.3% from 2.9%. Inflation is forecast to remain benign , at 1.9%.
The Government is finally acknowledging that the rise in the Corporation tax rate to 15% will boost revenue, by a forecast \u20ac3bn, bringing total Corporation tax receipts to \u20ac34bn or 31% of total tax revenue. Total current revenue rises by just \u20ac1bn while net current spending increases by \u20ac7.5bn,with voted spending up by 9%. As a result the current budget surplus falls to \u20ac22.7bn from \u20ac29.2bn this year. Tax bands and credits are unchanged so with wage growth there will be a net increase in the real tax burden for many, but at this stage of the electoral cycle the Government has chosen spending rather than tax reductions.
This year also saw a big increase in capital spending, to \u20ac25bn, including \u20ac5.5bn additional spending as part of the National Development plan. No such commitment is included for 2026, so capital spending actually slows to \u20ac20bn. The Government also plans to add \u20ac2bn to the Infrastructure Fund and \u20ac4.5bn to the Future Ireland Fund , with the overall capital deficit projected at \u20ac24.6bn, so leading to a small Exchequer deficit of \u20ac1.8bn.
The Funds transfer is netted out in the General Government figures which also includes a surplus on the Social Insurance Fund, so the General Government balance remains in surplus, at \u20ac5.1bn, albeit half the expected figure for 2025. Total gross debt is forecast to be largely unchanged in 2026, at \u20ac211bn, which alongside the modest rise in GDP results in a further fall in the debt ratio, to 32.3%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2026 Budget is predicated on a slowdown in the economy; GDP growth is projected at 1.0% from a massively revised 10.8% this year, with employment growth slowing to 1.5% from 2.2% and consumer spending rising by 2.3% from 2.9%. Inflation is forecast to remain benign , at 1.9%. The Government is finally acknowledging that … Continue reading “2026 Irish Budget”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danmclaughlin.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}