NEWLY APPOINTED FINANCE Minister Jack Chambers has said the Government intends to “give workers and families a break” in terms of income tax reductions in the upcoming budget but stressed that the main focus will be on sustainability. 

Chambers was speaking in front of Government Buildings in his first press conference since being officially appointed to the role by President Michael D Higgins yesterday. 

He does not have long to get to grips with his new office before the Government puts out its Summer Economic Statement next month, which always acts as a weathervane for the direction of the budget to come.

“Obviously we want to give workers and families a break in the context of income tax reductions but we have to be careful around that,” Chambers said.

“My core decision making will be on protecting the long-term interests of the Irish economy and ensuring that we have sensible economic decision making for budget 2025, because there are risks there.”

Chambers said the Irish economy is currently in a “good space” but that “the Irish people want to see that sustained for many years, not to see a cycle where we are giving something in one year and that’s undermined in a few years’ time.”

“Nothing has been decided yet” regarding the summer statement, he said, adding that he will be meeting Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe tomorrow morning to discuss it. 

Then on Monday, he will meet with the Government coalition party leaders to talk through “framing the broad parameters” of the statement. 

On the Budget, which is due to be announced in October, Chambers said that while inflation has come down, some prices remain high.

“Inflation has levelled at 2% but there are certain aspects of the cost of living which are still persisting, in terms of the prices of certain goods and services that people face,” he said.

“We will take all that into account in the context of Budget 2025 and obviously monitoring the impact of wage increases and modified domestic demand and how that tracks over the next two to three months.

“Obviously, there is pressure on families and we want to improve living standards in the context of Budget 2025.”

During the Dáil session where Chambers was voted in as the new Finance Minister, some opposition parties urged him not to go for a “giveaway” budget. 

Social Democrat leader Holly Cairns said he had an opportunity to bring about changes to ordinary peoples’ lives while Labour’s Ged Nash encouraged Chambers to be “a reformer” rather than a conservative. 

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said: “Everything will remain exactly the same”. 

People Before Profit’s Mick Barry said that Chambers was “cut from the same political cloth as his predecessor Michael McGrath and would deliver “the same old, same old”.

With reporting by Ayush Pandey