{"id":524648,"date":"2026-06-08T14:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/524648\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:20:14","slug":"simon-harris-insists-investment-savings-plan-is-aimed-at-middle-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/524648\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Harris insists investment savings plan is aimed at \u2018middle Ireland\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Finance Simon Harris<\/a> insisted on Monday that his savings and investment plan<\/a> is aimed at people from \u201cmiddle Ireland\u201d as he also confirmed that he will use Budget 2027<\/a> to reduce the tax burden for people \u201cthat have gotten up at a ridiculous hour of the morning\u201d to go to work and \u201cplay by the rules\u201d. <\/p>\n

The comments come weeks after two academic economists \u2013 Enda Hargaden, assistant professor of economics at University College Dublin, and Barra Roantree, assistant professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin \u2013 told the Oireachtas finance committee that Harris\u2019s plan will mainly benefit the wealthy and could create a hole in the tax base and affect the State coffers. <\/p>\n

The economists argued that the policy is likely to be regressive in nature, benefiting wealthier individuals and leaving people on the lowest incomes behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil, quite frankly, now the tax system has meant that really it\u2019s only the wealthy that have been able to participate in investments,\u201d Harris said at a conference hosted by professional services firm EY in partnership with the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, we live in a country where we are factually among the very best savers in the European Union, but among the very lowest participants in retail investments. And that\u2019s not right.\u201d <\/p>\n

While Harris had originally signalled in March that he favoured a Swedish retail investments model, some of his officials are known to have since highlighted the attractions of UK scheme, which is less complex from a taxation point of view, allowing an annual tax-free threshold for investments and no ongoing calculations. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0ISA savings model in UK is easy-to-understand option for Government\u2019s new savings schemeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Minister said that the Government aims to draw from the experience of a number of countries that have designed retail investment schemes. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t just go to another country and say, \u2018We\u2019ll take that and transpose it here\u2019. But you can learn from others. It is certainly true that what they\u2019ve done in Sweden is really impressive. It\u2019s really impressive and viewed by the European Commission as one of the best examples. The UK have done one too, and so we\u2019re looking at lots of different ones, and we\u2019re listening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"David McRedmond: \u2018O\u2019Connell Street needs high density housing\u2019 <\/p>\n

The Irish plan is expected to be outlined in the budget in the autumn. <\/p>\n

Harris also acknowledged that the general system around investments is \u201cpunitive\u201d and \u201cfar too complicated\u201d. <\/p>\n

The minister also reiterated that the budget will include a personal income tax package as households deal with inflation linked to the conflict in the Middle East. He previously said that people were \u201cirked\u201d that Budget 2026 did not introduce general increases to standard personal income tax rate bands. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to reduce the tax burden on people. I don\u2019t believe the only way to deal with a cost-of-living crisis is through social welfare,\u201d he said. \u201cSocial welfare has a very important role to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m also really conscious that there would have been so many people who would have sat in traffic today, that have gotten up at a ridiculous hour of the morning, would have dropped their children to the childminder or creche, who will play by the rules, work their backsides off, for want of a better phrase, and will still feel at the end of the week, at the end of the month, that the money that they\u2019ve worked for just isn\u2019t going far enough,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Finance Simon Harris insisted on Monday that his savings and investment plan is aimed at people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[10471,79,18,19,17,163128,44],"class_list":["post-524648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-savings-and-investment-union","tag-simon-harris"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116714931866642035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}