Watchdog warns that most households will see reductions in income next year

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : "If you're collecting €34bn - which is quite unusual in international terms - and at the same time only earning a surplus of €5bn, that means most of the corporation [taxes] are being used to fund ongoing expenditure.
52% : Average incomes are set to fall over the lack of personal tax changes in Budget 2026, according to the State-funded Economic and Social Research Institute, writes Muiris Ó Cearbhaill.
52% : He recommends that a pathway to reduce the chances of the country's finances falling into a deficit - over the reliance on corporate tax receipts - should be developed.
51% : This came at the cost of personal income tax changes for ordinary members of the public.
49% : On wage growth, the report stated that high-income households will feel the squeeze if salaries increase by the forecasted level of 3.7%. Tax band changes for those on high incomes typically help workers battle wage inflation, preventing cost-of-living bonuses from companies from being immediately removed in tax deductions.
48% : The Government introduced a €1.5bn tax package in Tuesday's Budget, which cut VAT and corporate tax rates to benefit restaurants and apartment developers, respectively.
35% : In an overall cutback in public spending packages, cost-of-living supports - such as energy credits - did not make up the composition of this year's Budget either.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.