William Aird: Prioritise Middle-Income Families in Budget 2027
William Aird addresses Budget 2027, asking the Tánaiste to prioritise middle-income families through adjustments to the standard rate tax band, tax credits and targeted supports for childcare and housing. He warns that rising living costs and wage-driven tax exposure are pushing many workers into higher tax rates and squeezing household budgets.
Main points
William Aird sets out the central ask: adjust the standard rate tax band, review tax credits and introduce targeted supports so that work continues to pay for middle-income families. He frames these measures as priorities in advance of the summer economic statement and the Budget 2027 process.
Why it matters
Aird highlights the pressure on families who earn too much to qualify for means-tested supports yet struggle with childcare, housing and everyday costs. He warns that recent wage increases are inadvertently pushing more people into higher-rate income tax, reducing the benefit of extra hours or promotions.
Government timing and next steps
The speaker calls on the Tánaiste to set principles that will guide Budget decisions and notes that the summer economic statement will outline the scale of the personal tax and spending packages. Aird says the government must scrutinise those parameters to protect middle-income households.
Policy context
Aird also reiterates the Programme for Government commitment to move towards 200 euro per month per child over the next four years and argues the tax bands are a practical tool to ensure work pays. He expresses sympathy for changes to tax bands alongside targeted childcare and housing supports.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Middle-income working families continue to shoulder the greatest burden of rising living costs. Many are earning too much to qualify for target supports and they are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the cost of childcare, housing and everyday expenses. At the same time, wage increases, intended to keep pace with inflation, are pushing more workers into the higher rate of income tax. Tánaiste, as the government prepares for budget 2027, I am asking you to prioritise middle-income families through adjustments and the standard rate tax ban and tax credits and supports to help. I am asking you to prioritise middle-income families through adjustments to the standard tax rate ban and tax credits together with targeted supports to help with childcare and housing costs. Will you set out principles that will guide decisions to ensure that work continues to pay and that middle-income families receive meaningful support? Thanks very much to Deputy Eard. Can I firstly agree with him that there's many good means-tested supports in place in this country, that's important, but there's also people who find that they do everything right, play by the rules, don't qualify for any of them, and are going, hang on a second, can I have a little bit of assistance here, can I keep some of my own money, can work actually pay in this country? And there's far too many people who get up very early, earlier by the day, and find themselves at the end of the month just about getting by, let alone getting ahead. So a priority for the budget will be to see how we can help those people. The squeeze middle, middle Ireland, call them what you will, people who are working hard and want to get by in life. We'll make decisions on the whole in government in relation to the overall package, but there will be a personal income tax package, the summer economic statement next week will set out the parameters in terms of how much the tax package will be and how much the spending package will be, that will give us an opportunity to scrutinise how best to use that. I personally am of the view, and indeed the governments that we're in has shown this on a number of occasions, that actually the tax bands is a helpful way, because as people's incomes rise, as people, and they are rising thankfully, as people do a bit of overtime, as people get a promotion, people work a few more hours, the tax man shouldn't be taking a greater percentage of their money at such an entry point, and we're below where other countries are. So I'm sympathetic to that argument and also to the issue of childcare. We've got to fulfil the Programme for Government commitment of getting to 200 euro per month per child over the next four years.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
