The recent Budget continues to neglect the needs of “people and families”, prominent economist Professor Ray Kinsella has said.
“Social capital…these days is actually far more important than financial capital,” Prof. Kinsella told The Irish Catholic, noting that Ireland has no “social-economic core” to the Budget.
Prof. Kinsella’s comments come amid claims that the most recent Budget has made tax individualisation worse, which sees one-income married couples paying more tax than two-income married couples once a certain amount is earned.
Irish Budget
Prof. Kinsella said that the Irish Budget has an “adhoc” set of measures that may “glitter politically”, but that they don’t “really connect with how people live and engage with their families”.
“A budget should be about the protection of the national wellbeing by a Government that is sovereign in terms of economic decisions,” Prof. Kinsella told this paper.
“A budget should be substantive, it should be about a democratic mandate to put things in place that are focused on the national welfare. We don’t have that any longer.”
Instead, the national Budget is decided “in Brussels, and it’s decided in boardrooms”, he said, continuing that it’s largely a “PR opportunity” for the Government.
“That’s not to say that the decisions announced in it don’t have an influence at the margin. There are a lot of people living on the edge and therefore relatively small amounts mean a lot to them.
“But essentially, the budget today is decided out of the hands of the Oireachtas. The decisions are made elsewhere,” Prof. Kinsella said.
Examples of this include the decision to raise the corporation tax rate in Ireland, a decision, Prof. Kinsella said, that comes from America and the OECD.
Carbon tax
“Another example of that would be the carbon tax. A carbon tax will influence the cost of living of businesses, it will influence the cost of living of households. And again, decisions on the greening of Ireland are taken completely out of our hands.
“If you take those two examples, what they show is that what was unveiled on Budget day was really imposed on Ireland,” Prof. Kinsella said.