There won’t be a “culture card” in 2027, and there is no budget funding for it, said Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, despite Cabinet colleague Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan pushing the idea.
The potential for a prepaid €100 voucher for 16-year-olds to attend concerts and other cultural events was floated in the run-in to the budget, but no announcement was made on Tuesday.
“There won’t be a culture card in 2027, and it’s not funded in the allocation that’s set out,” said Chambers following the budget announcement.
“Lots of ideas or suggestions would have been made by different Government colleagues, but we have been tightening fiscal parameters,” he said.
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He added that in the area of culture, priority had been given to the basic income for the arts scheme, funding for the Arts Council and additional cash for national cultural institutions.
This is despite O’Donovan suggesting on the eve of the budget that funding had been secured to progress the idea and that he hoped it would begin being rolled out towards the end of next year.
[ Budget 2027: Teenagers set to receive €100 voucher for cultural eventsOpens in new window ]
In a statement on Monday, O’Donovan’s spokeswoman said that funding to progress the card had been secured, adding: “All going well, we anticipate being able to roll it out by the end of next year.”
Following the budget, his spokeswoman said the Limerick County TD was focused on developing the concept of the card and would continue to engage with EU counterparts on it, while broadening engagement to include wider stakeholders countrywide and across Government.
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A source close to O’Donovan said he has discretion within his allocation to develop policies such as the culture card, arguing that final decisions on the programme for government – which contains a commitment to examine the introduction of such a measure – were a matter for Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris.
Harris said on Tuesday that the idea was “still being worked on”. He also defended the income tax package in the budget, which the Opposition said favours higher earners.
“Rightly, if you’re on lower incomes in this country you actually are also entitled to a lot of other things that people on middle incomes aren’t‚” he said, while arguing that about one-third of workers don’t pay income tax but are eligible for other payments not available to the so-called squeezed middle.
“This is why the squeezed middle have been left squeezed for so long, and they’re so frustrated in this country,” he said, adding that a working couple with a combined income of €100,000 were not wealthy people.
Harris also stood over the Government’s decision to bring in higher childcare subsidies later in the year during 2027, despite suggesting at an earlier point in the budget preamble that they could kick in from January.
“We made a conscious decision to do more and bring it in later,” he said. “People in this country want to know how we’re going to get to €200 per month per child in the lifetime of this Government and what we’ve done today is show a roadmap”
This was about not spreading things too thinly and being able to do more by bringing it in in September. These are judgment calls, but I think the balance is right,” he said.
Harris also defended the decision to increase the amount available under the Help to Buy scheme by €5,000, despite saying before the budget that he didn’t intend to bring in any property-related tax measures.
“On balance I think this was the right measure to do and I’m happy enough to do it,” he said, adding that the benefit would “far outweigh” any inflationary impact.
