Budget 2027
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
============================================================

Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

What we will see next week in the first instance is an ability to make sure we keep our country safe. When I came into this House, unemployment was around 15% and the IMF was in town and not just as visitors. We have all worked really hard to get our country back to a place of full employment where we are having discussions on how best to reduce tax and to increase public expenditure. We should never take that for granted so keeping the country safe at a time of huge global volatility is our first job as a Government. We will do that. We will continue to run budget surpluses and invest in our funds not for rainy days but for demographic change, infrastructure delivery, climate and adaptation.
We will take measures in the here and now to help people with the energy crisis. We have to make calls around excise and the debate we have been having in terms of home heating oil and gas. There will obviously be a personal income tax package. The Government is clear about that. The Deputy is right. Childcare is a social issue and an equality issue but it is also an economic issue. I am meeting lots of people across the country - disproportionately women - who are making career decisions not on the basis of their choice but on the basis of the lack of affordability or accessibility of a childcare place. Next week in the budget, we are determined as a Government to take a big step in that direction and to build on that for the lifetime of this Government.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29