Simon Harris

So I'm going to be careful here because most interviews I do these days, I find in the first half of the interview, I'm accused of spending too little and in the second half, spending too much or saying too much.

So, I mean, the details of the budget package will be for budget day, but I am very conscious of the fact

that one, there wasn't an income tax package last year.

And secondly, I don't buy into the narrative that the only way you help people during a cost of living crisis is through the social welfare system and subsidisation.

Sometimes the way you actually help people is making sure they're empowered to keep more of their own money in the first instance.

Yeah, so a couple of points on this.

I mean, I've heard a lot of commentary in recent days and I can understand it to some degree.

People are saying, well, hang on a second, why did you do something for this sector and that sector and not something for everybody?

But I would just make the point, and this isn't just my political view, it is the analysis of the Department of Finance, that when you take measures to reduce fuel costs and when you take measures to try and reduce energy costs, it reduces inflation as well.

So the Department of Finance estimates that as a result of the 750 million euro package that we've announced in recent days, it will suppress the inflation rate by about 0.6%.

So if, and I'm only using this figure as an example, but if inflation ends up being 3% in one month,

it would have been 3.6% were it not for the package.

And that means that everybody listening to your program when they go into the supermarket and when they go into the local shop is seeing the benefit of that.

So there's a huge link, a huge link between commodity prices, between energy and inflation.

And therefore, anything you can do to try and suppress rises in energy crises and energy prices insofar as anyone can does have a broader economic benefit for every citizen.

So in fairness to the Department of Finance, I think it's very, very difficult to fully accurately forecast corporation tax, and that's been known for a long period of time.

The figures that we've published in what we call the spring forecast, the document we published last week, have been endorsed by the Fiscal Advisory Council.

But let's be truthful, and this is one of the reasons we have to be careful in the management of the people's money.

You know, small movements in large international companies can have big effects in terms of the amount of corporation tax.

So not only last week did we publish a new