Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock

First up on this episode of Inside Business, the issue of fuel costs after the Dáil voted to postpone the restoration of fuel excise duty last Friday.

Did they wilt in the face of more potential protests?

What is the cumulative impact of taxes, levies, regulations and other fuel-related charges on the cost of transport and home-heating fuels?

And with the budget around the corner, should any changes to carbon tax consider both fuel affordability and the climate programmes funded by it?

For more on this, host Cliff Taylor was joined in studio by Kevin McPartlan, CEO of Fuels for Ireland.

Also in this episode, we look at the spread of digital tipping terminals that prompt customers to leave gratuities for basic counter service.

Should you tip on a coffee-and-pastry purchase? What about a takeaway?

And is tipping becoming expected rather than voluntary?

Irish Times Consumer Correspondent Conor Pope has been writing about this, and he joined Cliff to give his thoughts.

Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.
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The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council have made their pre-budget submission. They feel the Government’s proposed budgetary package will drive inflation and increase costs for households and firms.

The council also warned that current plans would increase reliance on corporation tax receipts, which it considers risky. It also feels more of the corporation tax windfall should be put into the State’s rainy-day funds.

For more on this, host Cliff Taylor is joined in studio by Niall Conroy, Ifac’s acting chief economist.

Plus, Irish Times Economics Correspondent Eoin Burke-Kennedy on the key takeaways from the latest Daft.ie report which shows Dublin rental availability falling by 18% year-on-year to fewer than 1,150 homes.

But the spike in market rents in the first quarter of this year after the introduction of new rental rules seems to have eased considerably.

The report shows what rent inflation like outside Dublin, and how finding accommodation is becoming extremely difficult for third level students.

Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Government has introduced 46 tax measures since 2013 to stimulate house building here. Have they worked and do they represent good value for money for taxpayers?

To help answer that question Ciaran Hancock is joined by Marian Finnegan, chief executive of Sherry Fitzgerald, Ireland's largest estate agent, and John McCartney, a property economics lecturer in TU Dublin, who spent 20 years working in the commercial property sector.

Together they debate a range of questions that are key to Ireland’s housing and property sector:

How many new homes do we need per year to serve the needs of a growing population?

Are schemes like Help to Buy or First Home good value for money - or do they only serve to drive prices ever higher?

Is it possible to design new schemes to bolster homebuilding in areas outside Dublin, where needs remain unmet?

What is the true level of vacancy around the country and what does it tell us about housing need?

How healthy is the commercial property sector?
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It's been a busy week for tech giant Meta. Its new glasses have sparked controversy over privacy concerns, while founder Mark Zuckerberg published his AI manifesto, and the company indicated that it might be willing to pay local communities to host data centres in their areas. Irish Times tech expert Ciara O'Brien explains why the glasses have caused such a stir and how Zuckerberg's approach to AI differs.

In part two: Ireland's corporation tax receipts are bulging, helped by the increase in the rate of tax paid by large companies as a result of recent changes agreed under the auspices of the OECD. The government recently published exchequer returns for the first seven months of the year, giving an insight into the extra corporation tax that is likely to flow our way. It's a helpful backdrop for the government in the run-up to October's budget. Eoin Burke-Kennedy looks at the numbers and what they mean. He also looks at what might happen to Ireland's public finances if an Apple, Microsoft, or Eli Lilly were to pull out.

Brought to you in association with EY.
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In a column last week, Cliff Taylor posed the question as to whether middle earners are being ripped off by the Irish income tax system.

And with no income tax package introduced in 2026, that meant the real tax burden has increased this year.

Minister for Finance Simon Harris has signalled that tax cuts are coming in the budget targeted at middle income earners, but does that require difficult political trade-offs?

Cliff joins host Ciarán Hancock in studio to give his view.

Plus, in a hard-hitting column this week, John McManus posed the question as to how Michael Fingleton got away with it for so long.

This is in relation to Fingleton’s stewardship of Irish Nationwide over nearly four decades until it collapsed in 2009, being bailed out by Irish taxpayers to the tune of €5.4 billion.

Fingleton passed away last Sunday at the age of 88.

Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.