Budget 2023 benefits the poorest in society the most, Environment Minister Eamon Ryan has claimed. 

In his budget speech today, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe told the Dáil that he was increasing the Standard Rate Cut Off Point by €3,200 to €40,000. 

It was a decision that Sinn Féin said “short-changed” struggling families on low incomes and the party also described the Government’s new €500 tax credit as “measly”, claiming that it would simply be “absorbed by those tenancies where landlords increase their prices”. 

Row houses for sale in a housing development in Iralnf on a rainy winter day

However, Minister Ryan defended the budget and said the Green party would not have signed off on it if it did not help the poorest in Irish society: 

“We have a test for any budget as a party and it has to be progressive,” Mr Ryan told The Hard Shoulder. 

“And the last three budgets have been. 

“We go to the independent ERSI and other modellers to ask, ‘Are the poorest people protected most?’ 

“And if you look at this budget and they divide it up into deciles - from the poorest sections of society to the wealthiest - those in the lower incomes got the most benefit.” 

He did, however, concede that the budget did do everything that people wanted it to: 

“And you can never do enough,” he continued. 

“It’s never that you’re satisfied with that but that is the first test that we do in any budget. 

“And this budget - like that last two - was progressive.”

Main image: Minister Ryan. Picture by: Polling New.ie