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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Now, the Minister for Finance, Simon Harris, met financial content creators about his new saving scheme, which he's hoping to introduce. One of those invited to the meeting was the MD of DNG Financial Services, Cian Carolyn. And Cian is with me here in the studio. Hello, Cian.
Hi, Clare. You were one of the chosen few. I was one of the chosen few.
Chapter 2: What is the new savings scheme introduced by the Minister for Finance?
Apparently a finfluencer is the term nowadays.
Finfluencer. So what happened? How did they find you? How was the approach made?
I got an email out of the blue on the 12th of June and it was just an invite to kind of a roundtable discussion in the Department of Finance to, I suppose, largely get the views of the end, what will ultimately be the end user. So I think they might have reached out to a couple of industry body representatives. There was a couple of industry advisors in the room as well.
Chapter 3: Who are the financial content creators attending the meeting?
And then there were a number of kind of social media influencers there present that would have large kind of platforms where they might talk budgeting or kind of general money advice. And I suppose it was probably leading into their audiences mostly.
Okay, and who was there on the government side? Obviously, Minister Simon Harris and Minister Robert Troy as well.
Correct, yeah. And then there was a number of their department staff as well.
Okay, so was the purpose of the meeting to explain to you guys what the Savings and Investment Scheme is or were they asking you what it should be?
I suppose the key purpose Our key kind of reason for being in the room, certainly as it was positioned to us, was to give them a sense of what the end user is going to want to see from this account. Maybe concerns that people have about the account from what they've heard of it so far. What are the barriers to entry for people to invest if they do launch this account?
And then there was obviously, you know, opportunity for us to kind of probe a a little bit more detail on the account because it's probably something that's been talked about well but probably been fairly information light so far. So what did you find out?
So what we do know is that they're not going to tell us the full detail until Budget Day but what we do know is there will be an annual amount that people can contribute into this account that will be tax free and can grow tax free. Above that annual limit there will be a low flat rate of tax applied on anything invested
And you didn't get a sense of what the limit would be?
No sense of what the limit would be, no sense of what that low flat rate of tax might look like either. No sense of whether if, let's say, you've got a young family that aren't in a position to utilise the full contribution limit in any one year, will that be allowed to carry forward into another year? So an unused allowance carried forward, we don't yet know that.
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Chapter 4: What was the purpose of the meeting with financial influencers?
a lot of people don't know who their pension provider is, let alone what funds they're invested in. And so that's where the concern is that people will start, people will open this account. And, you know, these accounts in different jurisdictions are really well subscribed. And it's good that people will invest. Like Ireland is a good, we're good savers, typically speaking.
But a lot of people have very little savings to their name in general. And what we don't want to see is people putting that money into these accounts
So give me the rules from your point of view. You're not ready to invest until you have and done what?
Yeah, so I always talk about it being you earn the right to invest when you don't carry expensive short-term debt. No credit card debt. Yeah, because why would you invest in the hope of No overdraft. Yeah, no overdraft. Car loans. No, because that could be an ongoing consideration and you have to be kind of practical about that. I think it's more so credit card if you're living in an overdraft.
And like if you don't have three months after tax savings to your name and a lot of people don't, then you're not ready to invest. It's very simple because if you don't have that buffer of overdraft, OK, my boiler goes and I need to spend three or four grand on a boiler or my car needs a new timing belt or whatever that kind of unexpected bill could be.
If you don't have that in the bank, you don't invest. That to me is very, very simple.
Did you get the sense that the ministers and the officials would agree with that?
Yeah, no, I think they agree with that. I think that they're thinking on this is this is long term savings. This is to build long term financial resilience for people. You know, this isn't about, you know, investing for short term returns today, tomorrow, next year, the year after. This is about making sure people are setting aside money for their future. So 10, 15, 20 years down the line.
Okay, and we'll hear more about it as we move towards the autumn. Cian, thank you for coming in and telling us about that very interesting meeting that you had. Cian Carroll, MD of DNG Financial Services, and you can find Cian as a finfluencer. Did I get that right? Please, Clare, it's finfluencer. Finfluencer on Instagram and other social media accounts.
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