{"id":86672,"date":"2025-09-26T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/86672\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T12:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:00:10","slug":"ministers-seek-way-to-exclude-fast-food-franchises-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/86672\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers seek way to exclude fast-food franchises \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government<\/a> is said to be exploring ways of excluding multinational fast-food chains from a reduced rate of VAT<\/a> aimed at shoring up the hard-hit hospitality sector.<\/p>\n

The Government has signalled that it will reduce VAT on restaurants and food-serving businesses in the budget<\/a> from 13.5 per cent to 9 per cent to help them fight costs.<\/p>\n

The Department of Finance\u2019s<\/a> Tax Strategy Group has costed the move at \u20ac675 million, a sum that would account for almost half the Government\u2019s proposed \u20ac1.5 billion tax package.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cost depends on what form the package takes … what it includes and what it doesn\u2019t,\u201d said Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Government advised to reconsider hospitality VAT cutOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a lot of negotiation around that shape so it may not necessarily reflect the full cost in the tax strategy papers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

It is understood the Government is examining ways of excluding big food franchises such as McDonald\u2019s from the measure.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Budget 2026 plans are coming at wrong time in economic cycle, ESRI warnsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, there is a worry that franchised businesses could change their structures in response to Government moves to exclude them.<\/p>\n

Speaking before a Fine Gael-hosted conference on small business in Carlow on Saturday, Mr Burke said there were about 240,000 people employed in the State\u2019s hospitality sector.<\/p>\n

\"\"The NFL comes to Dublin: How it became the richest sports league in the world<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of them are based in regional areas where that employment is at a premium,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sector that thrives on its authenticity and we don\u2019t want to gravitate towards a place where we have exclusively chains,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He acknowledged that the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector had come under significant cost pressure due to \u201cso many regulatory interventions\u201d while insisting the VAT cut would enhance the capacity while increasing footfall. <\/p>\n

A reduced VAT rate for hospitality combined with an increased R&D (research and development) tax credit are expected to form the main enterprise elements of next month\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

In a bid to enhance the State\u2019s attractiveness as a location in an increasingly competitive battle for foreign direct investment, the Government looks set to increase the R&D credit from the current 30 per cent rate while laying out a plan for future increases. <\/p>\n

The credit allows companies claim \u20ac30 back for every \u20ac100 spent on R&D, in addition to corporate tax deductions.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Irish restaurants are changing to stay afloat: \u2018Less people are going out. Thursday is the new Friday\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Burke said shoring up inward investment would be a key focus of the budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to see a very big statement on research, development and innovation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to go big on early-stage manufacturing and have a very strong competitive offering\u201d given the volatile geopolitical climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem for Ireland is that the longer that manufacturing goes on we come under pressure because a lot of those companies have lower-cost jurisdictions that we lose out to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

BD medical technology and <\/b>Cardinal Health have recently closed plants here following global supply chain reviews.<\/p>\n

Changes to the R&D tax credit will be \u201cthe hallmark of the enterprise budget\u201d with the Government setting out a \u201cpathway\u201d for future changes, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke acknowledged that US tariffs<\/a> had created \u201cuncertainty\u201d for businesses and that his department, in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs, had developed an action plan which includes grants for exporting firms to explore new market opportunities outside of the United States.<\/p>\n

On the high cost of energy here, an issue frequently highlighted by businesses, Minister Burke said an additional \u20ac34 billion in capital spending on energy had been earmarked between now and 2030.<\/p>\n

He also said a national energy taskforce had been set up \u201cto look at how we make our energy prices more competitive\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government is said to be exploring ways of excluding multinational fast-food chains from a reduced rate of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[10471,79,22779,18,19,17,4772],"class_list":{"0":"post-86672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-budget","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-department-of-finance","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-peter-burke"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86672","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=86672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}