The Ireland We Live In
We are living in extraordinarily unique times, where another annual budget surplus is about to be recorded, where the richest two billionaires have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population, and where poverty and homelessness is widespread and huge numbers of working-class people struggle with cost-of-living increases.
Energy and food prices keep increasing while the government is planning to cut cost-of-living supports in their upcoming budget. Given the difficulties households face, it is not the time to be removing cost-of-living supports. In light of proposed increases in energy prices, cost-of-living supports need to increase. We also need price controls for food and energy as well as significant wealth redistribution to provide living incomes for all.
Budget 2026 takes place at a time when American political and corporate interests threaten our government’s political influence to address the overreliance on American multinationals and investment, which means that the Irish economy is highly susceptible to external shocks from the U.S., like Trump’s tariffs and political bullying.
To prepare for a potential economic downturn, the Irish government is preparing to save money by raising student fees, abolish energy credits, and removing other one-off payments provided in 2025. This comes at a time when for the fourth year in the row the government is collecting more from taxes than they spend on public services.
The government is arguing that our budgetary position should not be relied upon to fund ongoing public expenditure. We do not agree that more sustainable additional revenues cannot be raised from the corporate sector and the very wealthy or that all additional revenues already raised should be stored away in a rainy-day fund.
We want to move away from the current economic model of prioritising multinational corporations and wealthy investors to appropriately taxing them to fund public services, infrastructure, and fair redistribution of wealth. We would use additional funding to establish a state-construction company to build necessary housing and invest in multi-annual capital expenditure projects like renewable energy transformation, retrofitting, public transport, healthcare, and education infrastructure projects.
We are also faced with existential climate, biodiversity and environmental crises that are destroying the conditions necessary for our survival. The government claims that it is not possible to fully address the problems our society faces in the short-term without fuelling inflation.
We reject their view as simply an excuse for the unwillingness of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to challenge the gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth in our society or the dictates of a market system that prioritises corporate profit over the needs of people and the environment.
We have enough resources to create a better, socialist society, where high quality, energy-efficient and affordable housing is available to all, where poverty is abolished, where incomes and wealth are redistributed back to those who create them, and where free high-quality public services are accessible to all. All it needs now is the political will.
Download our Summary Budget 2026:
Download the full People Before Profit Budget 2026 below: