Michelle Murphy

Well, in a way, no, because there is a commitment in the programme for government and actually prior to the war in Iran, you know, we've been hearing things about inheritance tax and personal income taxes.

But I suppose the concern we would have in social justice Ireland is, you know, we've had tax packages released since 2014.

the bulk of the value has gone to higher income earners.

But even if you just look at the last government between 2020 and 2025, there were personal income tax packages there.

And the problem is it opened up a gap between working households, those on lower to middle income wages and those on higher wages, because obviously if you earn in around the standard threshold rate in terms of taxation, you didn't get the benefits.

That's a huge concern to us because that gap,

has grown, and then also people who aren't engaged in the labour market, who are reliant on a social welfare payment, who are mainly just targeted one-off measures.

So for us, we would argue really that looking over even the past decade, what really has those packages delivered for those people on, I suppose, middle incomes, because any sort of personal income tax package means a reduction in revenue, which means that money has to come from somewhere and

Either it's not going to services like education, childcare, health, disability, or you have to raise it from somewhere else.

And I suppose it'll be interesting to see today if the minister outlines where he might see potential for revenue raising alongside with revenue reduction.

Yes, I mean, they're poorly targeted and they're very costly.

I think we had three sets of them before 2025 at about a cost of 1.6 billion.

Yet those who were the numbers in energy poverty grew and the numbers in arrears grew.

So if you are going to do something like that, you need to look at targeting it at the households who need it most.

And I mean, we've had plenty of time now to identify those households because the universal element

I mean, it's a way to meet every household, but it's going to people who don't need it.

And that's the problem.

It's a very costly way of doing it.

Well, in terms of those households, you can identify them and give them additional supports, for example, if they qualify for the fuel allowance.

But really, you need to look at