Dr Emma Howard

speaker

282 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 25 Aug

Dr Emma Howard’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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Today with David McCullagh · Fiscal watchdog critical of Government's budget plans · 25 Aug 2026 podcast

Good morning, David.

Yes, it's a strong warning from the council today and really highlighting uh the impacts of the excessive spending uh over the past number of years as well as the potential impacts into the future if the government uh do spend as much as they're planning to.

So, you know, what they're really highlighting is that we actually have a very strong economy at the at the moment.

So despite the geopolitical risks and and the increase

In costs that everyone is facing, we are seeing that actually our our economy, our domestic economy, is forecast to grow over 3% this year.

We've seen an increase in income tax receipts up 7.5% this year.

And employment is also up about 2.5% so far this year.

So while the economy is performing well.

Actually, although people may feel like a a big spend and and you know some cushions to to try and mitigate those cost increases we're all feeling, actually

Spending money in an economy that's performing well further feeds that inflation.

And you know, we've seen this previously when we had the the uh Russia invading Ukraine and and the cost of living crisis uh that occurred after that.

We know from uh central bank calculations that the impact of the government spending overruns in those three years.

added an extra thousand euro to a household's annual uh costs as a result of the additional inflation.

Now the Fiscal Advisory Council are warning that if we were to continue spending at that average rate of of nine percent, which we've seen in the last few years, increases year on year, it's going to add another thousand euro in in terms of higher inflation to a household's annual bill.

Exactly.

So, you know, you're you're thinking about here, it's kind of like putting a a sticking plaster on a bullet wound, right?

So, you know, we've we've got um

An increase in the cost of living, most of that is coming from external factors that are are beyond the government's control in terms of those energy cost increases.

But rather than addressing our long-term reliance on fossil fuel and looking at ways to kind of long-term protect uh consumers from uh increasing and and volatility of oil prices by simply uh

doing universal measures like cutting excise um on on diesel and petrol, you're giving consumers that immediate relief.

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