#Budget18: Complete coverage of today's budget announcements
The Ministers from five departments have given their press briefings on what the Government has billed as a budget developed as a national response to new risks and opportunities.
- Spending on health to increase by €685m, bringing the total budget for the Health Department to €15.3bn.
- An additional 1,800 staff across the health sector;
- A reduction in prescription charges for all medical card holders under 70 from €2.50 to €2 per item. The monthly cap drops from €25 to €20.
- The excise duty on a packet of 20 cigarettes will rise by 50 cents.
- Duties on alcohol go unchanged.
- There will be no changes in the price of diesel or petrol.
- A sugar tax from April 2018 will see an extra 30 cent per litre of tax on drinks with over 8g of sugar per 100ml. There will be a reduced rate of 20 cent per litre on drinks with between 5g and 8g of sugar per 100ml.
- Education spending will reach over €10bn in 2018. There will be 1,300 more posts in schools next year and the pupil-to-teacher ratio will reduce to 26:1.
- A €1.7bn investment in special education, with more than 1,000 new special needs assistants being recruited before September 2018.
- In a bid to address the homelessness crisis, €1.8bn will be allocated for housing. Next year, 3,800 new social homes will be built and there will also be an increase to the housing assistance scheme by €149m.
- An extra €500m for direct building programme will see 3,000 additional new build social houses by 2021.
- Stamp duty on non-residential property is being increased to 6% from midnight on Tuesday.
- A new agency, Home Building Finance Ireland, to use Nama's experience and provide cheap loans to developers was announced.
- Mortgage interest relief for people with loans taken out in period 2004-2012 is being continued to 2020 but at just 75% the rate in 2018, 50% in 2019 and 25% in 2020.
- All weekly social welfare payments to be increased by €5 starting from the last week of March. An 85% Christmas bonus will be paid this year.
- Threshold for the family income supplement will rise by €10 per week for families with three children. €2 per week rise in the rate of the qualified child payment.
- The home carer tax credit is to increase by €100 this year to €1,200 per year.
- For the self-employed, the earned income credit will increase by €200 , bringing it to €1,150 per year from next year.
- The threshold at which people enter the higher, 40% rate of income tax will rise from its current level of €33,800 by €750 for a single person to €34,550.
- An extra 800 gardaí and 500 civilians will be recruited next year. There will be €63m more for Justice to develop a "modern police force".
- VAT rate on sunbed services increases from 13.5% to 23% due to link to cancer from use of sunbeds.
- The vacant site levy, due to take effect from 2019, will increase from 3% to 7% in 2020.
- Brexit loan scheme of up to €300m is being made available to SMEs.
- VAT rate for tourism and services sector is being left unchanged at 9%.
- The State's 12.5% corporation tax rate remains unchanged
- Help to buy scheme for first-time buyers, which offers an income tax refund of up to €20,000 for buyers of newly-built homes, is being retained.
- A Rainy Day Fund will be established in the coming year, with at least €1.5bn to be transferred to it from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.
Minister Donohoe's Budget is on course to leave average working families better off to the tune of between €500 and €600 a year.
Minister Regina Doherty is next with her budget briefing.
Ms Doherty says her budget is "going to balance the books" and build a "fairer society".
Weekly rates of social welfare will rise €5, starting from March 26, 2018, she says. 1.3 million social welfare reicpients will benefit, she says. Young jobseekers on a reduced rate of payment will also get the rise.
There will be a €5 increase in max. rate of all weekly payments from 26 Mar 18 #Budget18 pic.twitter.com/3Xo5ukwEX1
— Department of Social Protection (@welfare_ie) October 10, 2017
Qualified child payment will rise from €29.80 to €31.80 and will impact 400,000 children, Minister claims.
The National Minimum Wage will rise to €9.55 an hour, she announces.
The Back-to-work scheme will stay also.
School meals programme will also include Deis schools, while the increased back-to-school funding will be kept also.
The Family Income Supplement is now called the Working Family Payment and the thresholds are raised by €10 per week for families of 1, 2 or 3 children.
The Minister also announced a €20 increase in the income disregard for working lone-parents - it will be €130 per week from 2018.
The fuel allowance payment scheme will be extended by a week, and will come in this winter.
The free travel scheme will get an extra €10m next year.
She has also announced new initiatives in the area of employment supports, including one for older jobseekers where employers will get a subsidy to employ people older than 50.
A New Youth Employment Support Scheme for young jobseekers announced #Budget18 #YESS pic.twitter.com/SEhijwfSe0
— Department of Social Protection (@welfare_ie) October 10, 2017
She also confirms the Christmas bonus will be maintained at 85%.
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Next up is the Minister for Health Simon Harris to give his budget briefing.
An extra €646m for Health in 2018, €200m of that will go towards pay in the health sector.
There will also be an additional €471m for capital spending from 2018 to 2021. We have a 10-year capital plan for November, says the Minister, which will see more capital funding for Health and more projects developed.
There will be an extra €75m be provided for additional support for waiting list overruns in 2017 and 2018.
There will be €37m for homecare packages and an extra €20m to help manage the increased demands of hospitals for extra bed capacity and support for hospitals. He said a bed capacity review will come up with a number for the amount of extra beds the extra funds will provide.
The Minister said that the waiting lists "aren't accurate" and "we need accurate up-to-date lists".
Cost of prescription charges for all those holding a medical card and aged under 70 will be reduced from €2.50 to €2. The monthly cap drops from €25 to €20.
#Budget18 will increase investment in the NTPF significantly to €55m in 2018, to help reduce wait times & increase access to healthcare pic.twitter.com/31lKuaizcE
— Department of Health (@roinnslainte) October 10, 2017
Primary Care will get €25m to take patients away from hospitals. In relation to GP contracts, he said he is very ambitious about what they can do in Primary Care when negotiating with GPs.
The Minister said: "Let's try and deliver a decent GP contract."
Minister Finian McGrath has announced an increase of €75m for disability services raising it to over €1.7bn in 2018. Meaning around 9,000 people will get access to disabled services, he says.
Minister hopes between 2,000, to 2,500 more people will be able to get respite services in 2018.
Minister of State for Health Promotion Catherine Byrne says €5m has been allocated to the Healthy Ireland fund.
For the most vulnerable in society, €9m has been allocated to expand drug and alcohol services, especially outside Dublin.
Minister Jim Daly says €885m will be spent on mental health.
For the elderly, there is a €25m budget allocated next year, with an additional €7m for home help packages and €9.7m for the Fair Deal scheme.
The breakdown of new housing is:
* 3,800 homes will be built directly by the State,
* Another 1,200 will be Part V builds or rebuilt vacant homes,
* 900 homes will be delivered through acquisitions
* A further 2,000 homes will be secured through long-term leasing arrangements.
* Total of 7,900.
Eoghan Murphy, the Minister for Housing, says Ireland has more than 8,000 homeless people.
He has announced a €760m increase in the housing budget and a €18m increase in homeless budget. He is targeting 3,000 exits from homelessness in 2018.
There will be a 46% increase in housing budget to €1.9bn with the housing needs of 25,500 families to be met.
He said: "We are providing an increase of €5m to expand the mortgage to rent scheme, increasing it to €22m in 2018, so that people can stay in their homes."
His department will have €1.14bn to build new homes next year meaning 3,800 new homes will be built by the State in 2018.
€500million extra to support new target of 50,000 homes for those on social housing waiting lists announced in #Budget18 pic.twitter.com/dVQNSkNvxu
— Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage (@DeptHousingIRL) October 10, 2017
1,200 homes will be for social housing homes next year.
An additional €500m has been allocated to the Rebuilding Ireland scheme.
Vacant site levy will be more than doubled to 7%, with an effective levy of 10% if developers continue to hoard land through 2018 and 2019. This will not be relevant for farmers who have productive land.
New planning guidelines will remove car parking space requirements for new apartment blocks.
€25m over 2018 and 2019 will unlock corporation land for community housing schemes.
He said: "In all, we will meet the housing needs of 25,500 new households on Local Authority waiting lists next year."
He also said that €32m will be released for repair and leasing of homes with a potential to deliver 800 properties.`
The Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) budget will increase by €149m to €301m, he said, and will support a further 17,000 homes.
"HAP will support 350 new tenancies into private sector renting each week next year," he said.
He said his aim is to reduce the dependency on HAP as State housebuilding increases.
Home Building Finance Ireland will sit alongside Nama, and will begin financing non-Nama debtors in the middle of next year, he said.
The finance will be available at commercial rates, he said, and will lead to a lot more affordable homes being built.
The threshold and decision on who will be able to access the fund has yet to be finalised.
"There will be an almost doubling of houses built by local authorities next year," said the Minister.
He said: "Earlier this week I signed off on 18 of the 34 LIHAF infrastructure investment projects to open up new land banks and provide homes at affordable prices.
Minister Richard Bruton says department will spend more than €10bn this year.
In Higher education, there was €1.54bn in 2017, and there will be €1.57bn next year, with €200bn for PPPs.
He said there will an additional €200m PPP investment and €64m in 2018 for the National Training Fund.
He said nearly 1,300 new teachers will be recruited, and more than 1,000 special needs assistants. There will be an extra 180 special needs classes next September in schools, benefiting more than nearly 1,400 children.
1. Over 2,200 extra teaching and SNA posts in schools will be provided in September 2018 #budget2018
— Richard Bruton (@RichardbrutonTD) October 10, 2017
There will be an extra 20 speech and language specialists initially in schools also, and more schools in DEIS.
More career guidance posts will be allocated in September 2018, bringing the number to 500
More than €1m will also be allocated to continued implementation of the policy on Gaeltacht Education.
Ms Mary Mitchell O'Connor said they will be announcing extra current and capital spending. An extra €64.5m is announced for further education and training and higher education, in addition to the €37.5m announced in 2017.
There will also be an extra 2,000 school places in higher education for those from a disadvantaged background.
There will be an extra €22m provided for an extra 2,000 students in 2018.
There will be €0.5m in funding for gender equality in the education sector.
There will be an increase in capital spending from €110m to 367m in education.
The total investment in higher education will be €2.36bn.
Minister John Halligan announces a €19m skills package to tackle the skills shortage, with €3m for an extra 1,000 places on Springboard Plus.
There will be an additional €10m for apprenticeship programmes, such as culinary and retail apprenticeships, meaning 10 new programmes.
He has also announced €3m for the upgrade of apprenticeships materials. There will also be an extra 1,300 training places.
Also announced was €3.5m extra for Skillnets.
A further €6.5m will be allocated to provide support for the implementation of the foreign languages strategy and STEM education policy.
The Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald talking at a press conference for the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, says the department has an €871m budget for 2018, with €387m allocated for research next year.
The €300m SME Brexit loans scheme has been set up in case access to credit for businesses dries up.
They will set up a tailored loan scheme for businesses employing less than 500 people. The proposed interest rate will be about 4%.
The Minister says they are also working on a longer term scheme to help firms deal with Brexit.
.@FitzgeraldFrncs announces new €300m low-cost Brexit loan scheme for Business. #Budget18 pic.twitter.com/66n4RudNCv
— Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (@DeptEnterprise) October 10, 2017
The scheme will be launched in March 2018.
She has announced that the department will recruit an extra 50 staff next year to deal with Brexit issues for businesses, and will also have €50m specifically aimed at easing the fallout from Brexit.
On top of the loans scheme is another €25m in funds for the agri-food sector which employs 173,000 people in Ireland.
Enterprise Ireland will get €122m to support R&D initiatives, saying: "sustaining quality employment in the regions is essential for growth".
Minister John Halligan says Ireland is 10th in the world with regard to scientific research.
He also revealed that the department's increased capital budget for Innovation will allow Ireland to join the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in 2018.
He said joining the ESO will bring fantastic opportunities for Ireland in space research.
He has announced Science Foundation Ireland will see its funding rise by €4.25m in 2018. It will establish a new future milk research centre run by Teagasc.
Also, €7.5m has been allocated for new PhD research in agri-science.
Tyndall National Institute will get €4.5m in funding next year.
Minister Pat Breen welcomes the extra €25m for Enterprise Ireland to fund regional development.
Finishing up, Minister Paschal Donohoe said: "I believe these changes are an essential contribution to a fairer and more decent society.
"We have achieved so much and we can, and we will, achieve more. That is why I commend Budget 2018 to the House."
Mr Donohoe said: "This Budget achieves sustainable and affordable tax reform, delivers improvements in services, and ensures increased investment in our national infrastructure.
"We are broadening our tax base to make it more resilient and secure in the future.
"As a country, we normally make these decisions at times of national difficulty. Let us resolve to do this differently now."
The Home Carer Credit is set to increase €100 in 2018 to €1200 a year.
The Minister announces that 147,000 self employed to see Earned Income Credit raised €200 to €1,150 in 2018.
The 12.5% Corporation Tax Rate remains unchanged. The Minister said: "It is, and will remain, a core part of our offering."
"With so much change ahead, Ireland must compete, not only on the rate, but on the ability to offer certainty."
He said: "I am establishing a working group to plan, over the coming year, the process of amalgamating USC and PRSI over the medium term."
The Minister told the Dáil: "We are broadening our tax base to make it more resilient and secure in the future."
The Minister is reducing the 2.5% USC rate to 2% and increasing the ceiling for this new rate from €18,772 to €19,372. Entry point to USC remains at €13,000
He is also reducing the 5% rate of USC to 4.75% and also reducing the top marginal rate of tax on income up to €70,044 to 48.75%.
The entry point for a single person to enter the income tax rate will rise from €33,800, to €34,550.
The point at which an income earner attracts the higher rate of income tax will rise next year by €750 per annum
There will be a rise in allocations to Dept of Finance of €13m for 2018
The Minister is also increasing the threshold for receipt of the Family Income Supplement by €10 per week for families with up to three children.
A further increase of €100 in the home carer credit this year, bringing the value of the credit up to €1,200 per year.
The Minister has also announced a new phone allowance for social welfare recipients. It's not available to everyone and will be capped at €2.50 per week.
The Christmas bonus payment of 85% will again be paid to all social welfare recipients in 2017.
The Minister has announced a €5 increase in weekly social welfare payments, including disability, carer’s, Jobseekers’ Allowances and State Pension.
There will be €17m to fund the rollout of the Renewable Heat Initiative and schemes to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles, with 0% benefit-in-kind rate on electric vehicles.
Tusla will extra funding of €40m for child protection bringing the total allocation to €754m.
An additional €20m will be allocated to support a range of childcare measures, including further development of the extended free Pre-School programme, ensuring entitlement to a full two-year service from Sep 2018.
The Department of Agriculture is to get and extra €64m in Budget 2018, bringing the total in 2018 to €1.5bn.
The budget for new Department of Rural Affairs increasing by €19m for existing programmes - a 12% increase year on year.
The Minister announces that the Dept of Transport, Tourism & Sport will get €111m for sport in 2018.
An extra €2.5m will be allocated for Irish language training in 2018.
The VAT rate on tourism and services sector WILL NOT change and the Dept of Transport & Tourism will have a budget of over €2bn.
Also, total Dept of Business, Enterprise and Innovation Budget will be €871m next year.
Mr Donohoe dedicated a section of his speech to Brexit-proofing initiatives.
Among them will be a special €300m loans scheme - backed by the European Investment Bank Group, the European Commission and the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland - for small businesses, including the food sector, at competitive rates.
Forty new staff will be hired in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and enterprise agencies to meet what Mr Donohoe said were "challenges and opportunities arising from Brexit".
The Minister announces 800 extra Gardaí to be recruited in 2018.
An additional 500 civilians will also be hired into the force.
There will also be 1000 extra special needs teachers by Sept 2018 bringing total to 15,000.
Education spending of over €10bn, 16.6% of total expenditure. There will be 1,300 extra teaching posts in schools for 2018. This will lower the Pupil - teacher ratio to 26:1.
Minister introduces a Sugar tax of 30c per litre on sugary drinks and a 20 cent tax on a litre of fizzy drinks with 5-8g per 100ml.
To make a "healthier Ireland", the Minister says will be an extra 50c on a pack of 20 cigarettes. This will bring the price of cigarettes in the most popular price category to €12.
Nama will still be wound down and the HBFI will comply with state aid rules, but will use NAMA expertise.
There will be €750m from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund allocated for commercial investment in housing through new entity - Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI).
Mortgage relief has been lowered to 75% for 2018, 50% 2019 and 25% in 2020.
The Drug Payment Scheme threshold has been lowered from €144m to €134m.
A reduction in the prescription levy for those aged under 70 years from €2.50 per item to €2 per item, with a subsequent reduction in the monthly cap from €25 to €20.
The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has been allocated €55m, a trebling of the 2017 figure.
An extra €471m to be made available from 2018 - 2021 for primary care.
Up to 1,800 more frontline staff in acute, mental health, disability, primary and community care sectors .
There will be an increased allocation to Health of €685m for 2018 which will bring Health funding to €15.3bn, almost 5% increase.
On Capital Gains Tax, seven-years owners must retain assets to enjoy full relief of CGT to be lowered to four years.
The Minister has announced a 3% vacant site levy for 1st year of vacant site to more than double to 7%. Any landowners who doesn't develop in 2018 will pay 3% in 2018 but 7% from 2019 on.
To fight homelessness, the Minister announces an €18m increase to €116m. for emergency accommodation.
He said: "The message to vacant site owners is clear – to have your levy lifted, you need to get on with developing your lands urgently."
An allocation of €750m will come from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund for commercial investment in housing through a new entity called Home Building Finance Ireland. This will subsume Name, which will be wound down.
He said: "The level of stamp duty on commercial property transactions will increase from 2% to 6% from midnight tonight."
He said: "I am making up to €750m of the ISIF available for commercial investment in housing finance."
"I am providing an extra €500m for the direct building programme which will see an additional 3,000 new build social houses by 2021, increasing the existing Rebuilding Ireland target of social housing homes to 50,000, of which 33,500 will be delivered through construction."
An increase of €31m has been allocated to the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme bringing total to €115m.
Funding for Homeless Services will be increased by a further €18m to over €116m.
"Housing remains a priority for this Government," he says, announcing 3,400 new social homes next year.
"I am allocating a total of €1.83 billion for housing in 2018."
The Minister is inncreasing the Housing Assistance Payment Scheme by €149m in 2018
He said: "I am increasing voted capital expenditure by €790 million from €4.54 billion this year to just over €5.3bn in 2018."
"Expenditure will receive an additional €898m," he said.
He said: "I am raising additional revenue in order of €830m, giving a total Budget day package of almost €1.2bn. I will also be introducing tax reductions on income worth €335m"
He said: "I am announcing an allocation of capital expenditure of €4.3bn over the next four years."
He confirms that total expenditure in 2018 will be €60.9bn or €12,700 for every person in the country. Of this €55.5bn will be allocated to current expenditure but capital spending will amount to over €5.3bn, an increase of €790m on 2017 allocation
He aims to establish the Rainy Day Fund in 2018 and transfer €1.5bn to it from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. The annual contributions of €500m will commence in 2019 after we have achieved the MTO set in 2018.
#Budget18 Rainy Day Fund pic.twitter.com/e4aJdFqSO1
— Department of Finance (@IRLDeptFinance) October 10, 2017
Reducing the debt burden is "critical" and is "too high". "We cannot ignore the level of debt and what it could mean for future generations," he said, adding the focus would remain on continuing to reduce the debt burden.
The projected deficit for this year is 0,3% of GDP, 0.2% in 2018.
The budget will achieve the medium-term budget objectives, says the Minister.
“There remains much to be done,” he said.
He says that the books will broadly be balanced in this Budget.
He says the economy continues to grow strongly, real growth is projected to be 4.3% in 2017 & 3.5% in 2018.
He outlined his three economic pillars: Safeguard our national finances, promote fairness and make sensible and long-term investments.
Paschal Donohoe says we build on progress that would have looked impossible only a few short years ago.
The Minister for Finance has stood up to present his budget.
Minister @Paschald leaving for the traditional #budget18 photo call @IRLDeptPER @IRLDeptFinance pic.twitter.com/qCxIqreiDg
— MerrionStreet.ie (@merrionstreet) October 10, 2017
