Budget to support those 'who get up early every morning'
Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin has ruled out universal energy credits in the upcoming national budget, citing a need to focus on substantive, ongoing economic issues. Government officials indicated that tax adjustments will be modest, with a primary focus on infrastructure and housing.
Why it matters
This signals a shift in Irish fiscal policy away from broad, one-off cost-of-living subsidies toward long-term structural investment.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has ruled out universal energy credits in next month's Budget.
The Fianna Fáil leader was speaking in Tullamore, Co Offaly, as his parliamentary party gathered for its annual think-in ahead of the new Dáil term.
Amid mounting concern over the cost-of-living, Mr Martin was clear that universal energy credits would play no role in Government efforts to bring prices down.
"Every time you do a one-off payment, and so if you have a billion or two billion (euro) in one-off payments, you're reducing your capacity to deal more substantively with issues that matter to people on an ongoing basis, not just on a one-off basis," he said.
"So that's what informs our approach in respect of that. So the sort of energy credits for everybody, I can't see the capacity being there to do that".
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