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The Other Hand
A rare opportunity to do the strategically right thing and reap political dividends: a budget for housing, not tax cuts.
Jean-Claude Juncker, ex-head of the EU Commission, once famously said that policymakers know what is the right thing to do, but don't know how to get re-elected if they do it. That is true too much of the time. But is there a unique opportunity for the Irish government, for once to do the right thing and to be rewarded for it at the ballot box?
Finance Minister McGrath has promised a tax-cutting budget. Is he missing a trick? Housing has such political salience in Ireland, if he threw the kitchen sink at building more homes instead of tax cuts, maybe that is also a vote-winning strategy? And also an opportunity to give Sinn Fein a good kicking while they are down?
Meanwhile, data emerges that shows the Irish tax system becoming even more unbalanced. That's storing up problems for the future.
San Francisco hasn't had an earthquake lately but its commercial property sector is crashing. Vacancy rates are probably higher that the 30+% reported as some big companies are effectively squatting in very under-utilised space. Why not just covert all this space into housing? Lots of other cities, including Irish ones, are in the same position.
Rishi Sunak's damage limitation exercises backfire. Labour can't believe its luck.
Keir Starmer's irish influencers.
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