What people want from the budget?

Renter: ‘Unless I win the lotto, there’s absolutely no way I will be able to buy a house’

Jane Cuppage (38) is an insurance broker who rents a one-bedroom apartment in Dún Laoghaire for €1,800 a month.

It took her almost 18 months to find somewhere to rent when she moved back from London.

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“It was difficult two and a half years ago, and it’s even more difficult now,” she says of the hunt for a rental property.

“Unless I win money on the lottery, there’s absolutely no way in the current climate that I will be able to buy a house. If it continues on this way, I’m going to be a lifetime renter,” Cuppage says.

Despite a recent pay rise, she says at least half of her salary, if not more, goes on her rent.

She has had to reduce her pension contributions to afford this, and is unable to save enough for a deposit on a home.

On top of high rental costs, she believes there is a “tax on single people” which makes the cost of living even more expensive.

“Everything from your rent, where you can live, trying to get a mortgage, and even buying food – all the meal deals are for two people minimum,” Cuppage says.

One State scheme which could have helped reduce her monthly rental payments and make saving for a mortgage more achievable was the Cost Rental scheme.

This scheme offers rented accommodation at 25 per cent below market rent to people with a net household income of €66,000 or below in Dublin or €59,000 or below in the rest of the country.

However, when Cuppage applied to one of these housing schemes, she was told her wage was too low to pay their rent of €1,300.

“I couldn’t understand, it was cheaper than the rent I’m paying to a private landlord now, but they said my net wage was too low [to afford it].

“I’m paying about €550 more a month now just on my rent, not even on my bills, and you’re telling me that I don’t qualify because I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent every month? It’s insane,” she says.

She also feels locked out of the affordable purchase scheme, where local authorities sell homes below market value and take a share in the ownership, because she cannot save for a deposit while paying her high rent.

“I earn too much to apply for social housing, so I’m completely pushed into a position where I just have to live where I’m living now and understand that I won’t be able to save. Maybe I can try and find somewhere a little bit cheaper [to rent], but that would probably take me up to two years, because I just can’t get viewings,” she says.

She does not believe in the Government’s strategy to lure back private investment in apartment building, and says Ireland does not have affordable rents or security of tenure to make lifelong renting a sustainable option.

“The really sad thing about the current climate is that I’m actually very fortunate to have somewhere to live and to be able to afford where I live – but that’s also just not good enough,” Cuppage says.

– Niamh Towey

Landlord: ‘Landlords are part of the solution here to the rental crisis, but it’s got to be fair on both sides’

Brendan Allen is a former landlord and committee member of the Irish Property Owners’ Association who recently left the property market because of what he calls the unfair treatment of smaller landlords.

“Landlords are part of the solution to the rental crisis, but it’s got to be fair on both sides,” he says.

Many landlords with large mortgages are being left out of pocket because they cannot raise their rents by more than 2 per cent when their interest rates rise, he says.

“We should have the ability to increase the rent between tenancies. I’d like to see that and perhaps put it up [the rent rise cap] to 4 per cent where it originally started, which would make a bit more sense for landlords,” Mr Allen says.

Similarly if a tenant goes into rent arrears it can be quite a lengthy process to have the issue resolved through the Residential Tenancies Board, during which time they are not receiving any rental income to cover their mortgage, Mr Allen says.

Landlords also do not receive the same level of tax relief as a normal business owner would, which Mr Allen says is “grossly unfair and unreasonable”.

“Rental income is not treated the same as any other trading business. So the amount of deductions that you can set off against your rental income as a tax bill deduction is quite reduced,” Mr Allen, who runs LandlordTaxReturns.ie, says.

“A lot of the situations I find is that many, many landlords end up in a cash flow deficit,” he says.

The frequency of changes to rent regulations over the last number of years has also created difficulty for landlords, he says.

“We all want good quality landlords out there, but the regulations are changing quite often. In addition to that, they’re very complex, particularly with regard to notice periods. There’s also all the necessary compliance stuff that landlords need to know that takes time – but you cannot get a tax deduction for acquiring that information. That’s the unfairness in this current regime,” Mr Allen says.

Further changes to rent controls due to come into effect in March 2026, such as smaller landlords only being able to terminate a tenancy in under six years in limited circumstances, are particularly difficult, he says.

“Landlords are leaving, particularly with these new proposals,” Mr Allen says.

He would like to see Budget 2026 make an effort to make the rental market fairer on landlord.

“ If you’re in a situation where you can’t recover it [your investment], why would you want to stay in that market?” Mr Allen says.

– Niamh Towey

Teacher: ‘Teachers can’t afford to live here, they’re choosing to move back to wherever they’re from’

Ann-Marie Murphy took up a new habit before the last budget when she began to save money during the summer months to pay high winter utility bills.

A secondary teacher for more than 10 years in Maynooth, Co Kildare, her pretax earning of about €70,000 no longer allows her to live as comfortably as she once could have, she says.

She estimates both her gas and electricity bills to total about €400 on average per month for her family of five.

“Those little sweeteners they gave us last year, those supplementary payments, they really felt like a Band-Aid,” she says, and hopes more will be done to address the costs.

Last month, her electricity provider announced a 12 per cent increase.

“It feels like there’s no governance on it, that they’re just free to do whatever they like,” she says.

As a teacher, she hopes Budget 2026 will include funding for more special needs assistants and guidance counsellors, of which there are two in her school of 1,200 students.

She also hopes to see the backlog of assessments of need addressed on Tuesday, saying “so many” undiagnosed students are left without required supports.

Funding to hire more teachers overall to lower the pupil-teacher ratio is another must, she says. Her class is at maximum capacityand targeted measures to ease the teacher recruitment and retention crisis are vital.

Three teachers left her school last year due to “sky-high” rents and unaffordable housing in her area, she says.

“Teachers can’t afford to live here, they’re choosing to move back to wherever they’re from,” she says.

– Jack White

Farmer: ‘We’re not just farmers, we’re the country’s rare food producers who feed the world’

Isaac Wheelock loves his job, but there’s a problem. At 35, he is torn between passion and prudence, because tillage farming, his bread and butter and his preferred career, is no longer putting food on his own table. The irony is not lost on him.

“The best I can hope for is to break even for income in 2025 and that’s because the cost of food production is simply not viable for the very people who produce it to feed themselves,” he says.

Wheelock, who farms on land he rents in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, says he is crippled by ongoing increases across all his input costs for tillage, including seed, fertilisers, chemicals, machinery, labour, fuel, insurance and land rental.

“Those input costs range from €600 to €1,000 per acre depending on the crops. The Government wants to grow tillage acreage up to 400,000 hectares by 2030, to meet climate targets, but at the same time, and because of all the costs involved, the sector is actually becoming smaller.”

Wheelock wants more assurances from Government in the budget that more efforts will be made to support tillage farmers, and that there will be a less restrictive regime around inheritance tax.

“Parents leave a farm to their children in good faith, so that they too can make a living from that land and keep it in the family. But in order to pay inheritance tax, some farmers have to actually sell the land to meet that bill,” he says.

– Siobhan Maguire

Social welfare recipient: The tenant-in-situ scheme should be ‘brought back and properly funded’

Sarah Corrigan lives in private rented-housing in Cork city with her three children aged 12 and under.

The single mother works as a social care worker three days a week. “I absolutely love it,” she says.

Though the cost of childcare, fuel and groceries are concerns for her, her priority is housing. Her income is low enough that she qualifies for a reduced One Parent Family Payment (OPFP) but is too high to qualify for social housing.

“I was on the housing list for about three years and was to be offered a house, but when the council looked at my income again recently it was too high. They took me off the housing list.

“I know my landlord wants to sell the house. It is very stressful and frustrating. I love my job, it’s extra income and it’s good for the kids to see me going out to work but I might have to give it up to get back on the list.”

She would like the tenant-in-situ scheme “brought back and properly funded”.

In Budget 2026 more affordable childcare along with increases in fuel allowance, the child support payment – a payment to welfare recipients in respect of children in their care – and the income disregards for the OPFP, would help her make ends meet.

– Kitty Holland

Craft distiller: Reduce the excise duty for distilleries; it’s the third highest in the EU

After a challenging year, the co-owner of Micil Distillery, Pádraic Ó Griallais (38), is calling for a reduction in excise duty for distilleries in Budget 2026.

From Indreabhán in Co Galway, Pádraic and his brother Jimín, are sixth generation distillers, but the first to be doing it legally.

Founded in 2016, the distillery is named after their great-great-great grandfather, Micil Mac Chearra, who began distilling illicit poitín in 1848. Now they produce gin, poitín, cream liqueur and whiskey.

“We have just put behind us some of the most challenging years we are ever going to face in Irish whiskey and spirits,” Pádraic said.

Increased consumption during the pandemic led to an overstocking of whiskey by retailers. A “post-Covid hangover” saw consumption decrease and orders fall, combined with increased input costs and US import tariffs.

The biggest problem, Pádraic said, is high electricity costs which have impacted production costs and some of their key inputs such as malted barley, glass bottles and labels.

“If I was to point to one thing, it would be that Ireland has the third highest excise duty in the EU,” he says..

Craft breweries benefit from a rebate on excise duty and Pádraic would like so see a similar measure introduced for distilleries.

A reduction in excise duty would have a “cumulative effect”, for Micil saving “tens of thousands” that would allow it to hire “one or two more people” and “strengthen the business domestically”.

Pádraic also wants more funding for agencies such as Bord Bia, Enterprise Ireland, and local enterprise offices, who “deserve an awful lot of praise and credit” for helping small businesses access export markets.

– Hugh Dooley

Cafe owner: ‘People think we whinge a lot but we’re vocal because we’re passionate about what we do’

In south Connemara, in the heart of the Gaeltacht, a perfect storm is brewing for a local coffee shop and bakery. Builín Blasta Café & Bakery has made it through a tough summer, with tourism numbers down and rising running costs.

Owners Heather Connolly and Eimear Killian, who make all their bakery offerings from scratch, employ 25 staff at the Spiddal business. They feel lucky to have a loyal local customer base, but say business costs, staffing levels, and margins remain an ongoing worry.

“In 2025, we have sales costs, labour and staff costs, and overheads that include rent, rates, electricity, insurance and maintenance – and all of these have increased in price,” says Killian.

“In terms of food costs, chocolate has gone up by 157 per cent, coffee by 35 per cent, electricity 95 per cent, fruit and vegetables by 50 per cent, and poultry by 42 per cent. You don’t want to pass those costs on to the customer either, but it is an ongoing struggle to meet this.”

In the budget, they want the reinstatement of a 9 per cent VAT rate, a minimum-wage increase that will not exceed inflation, and greater funding in the promotion of food tourism.

“Small businesses like ours are the beating heart of communities, and more must be done to help us keep our doors open at a time when so many others have had to close,” Killian says.

– Siobhan Maguire

Student: ‘Education is a right and should be prioritised in the upcoming budget’

Channing Kehoe – a law and political science student – is the marketing and communications director for Trinity College Dublin’s student’s union.

In July, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless said that without a cost-of-living package in the budget, fees would have to increase again to €3,000 “as things stand”.

His comments received huge backlash at the time and now, in advance of the budget, Kehoe says, the union is still strongly opposed to move. “With students already struggling through a severe cost of living and accommodation crisis, any fee increase is unacceptable.

“Education is a right and should be prioritised in the upcoming budget.”

Instead of increasing fees, she calls on the Government to “invest in students through properly funding higher education programs and taking steps towards tackling the accommodation crisis

“The budget must aim to ease student hardship, not add to it,” Kehoe says.

– Rebecca Daly

Older person with health difficulties: ‘They talk about creating more housing but it has to be user-friendly housing’

Denis Horan (63) is from Drogheda, Co Louth. In 2020, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and has moved back to Ireland after spending 35 years in New York as a result. Due to his health condition, he can’t work.

“I worked since I was 17 but I had to retire. Because I retired early, I’m on a fixed income now which makes it a little difficult,” he says.

Due to him retiring early, he doesn’t qualify for many of the benefits of senior citizens, such as bus passes or a pension.

Horan may soon have to leave his home and is considering a move abroad to the likes of Portugal or Spain, where it would be cheaper to live. Because of his specific needs, he is restricted where he can live.

He would like to see supports in the budget for specialised housing that would fulfil his needs and the needs of other older people in Ireland, such as ground floor accommodation with no stairs.

“They talk about creating more housing but it has to be user-friendly housing – for me, especially, and other people of a certain age. Taking a fall can be very dangerous. There are many places I could hurt myself. I don’t expect [them] all to make a rubber room but you have to be careful,” Horan says.

What would also be helpful for him in Budget 2026 would be an allowance for healthcare, particularly in terms of helping him get access to exercise materials.

“I’d be interested in seeing some sort of help with exercise plans because exercise is a huge part of slowing Parkinson’s and not everyone has access to gyms or health groups.”

Like most people, he’s noticed an increase in the general cost of living, with healthy food – in particular – much more expensive. Eating well, he says, is a big part of keeping well with Parkinson’s and he would like the Government to make it more affordable.

“When the medications working, it also helps if I have a good meal. Food is very important with Parkinson’s.”

– Rebecca Daly