With just six days to go before Budget 2025, the Finance Minister looks set to announce a ‘ridiculous’ giveaway package, Shane Coleman has predicted.

Jack Chambers will take to his feet in the Dáil on Tuesday afternoon with an overall package of around €8 billion to play with.

That is a likely to include around €1.5bn in tax measures, with ‘significant’ tax cuts and €1.5bn in cost-of-living measures.

There is also expected to be more than €1bn for childcare and significant spending on infrastructure.

Giveaway budget

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Shane Coleman said he would prefer to see the government learn from the mistakes of the past and announce a “sensible” package – even if he knows that is not going to happen.

Asked if he expected a ‘Late, Late Show audience kind of a budget’, he said: “It is going to be ridiculous.”

“It's going to be huge, he said.

“Everybody will be thousands of euro better off and at a time when the economy is operating at full capacity and prices are really high, I think that's madness.

“I also think it's madness when we're so dependent for tax on small number of companies.”

Sensible spending

Shane said he would prefer to see the Government abiding by its own spending rules.

“I want what we definitely will not have and we will not get,” he said.

“I want the government to listen to the Fiscal Advisory Council.

“I want them not to fuel the economy, I want them not to undermine the tax base and I want them not to reduce inheritance tax.

“I want them to be sensible and to remember what happened 15 years ago – but that's gone, that's out the window. That bird has flown and that ship has sailed.”

Ciara Kelly in the Newstalk studio. Image: Newstalk

Fellow presenter Ciara Kelly said she would like to see “a bit more money in my own pocket”.

“I make no apologies for believing it's reasonable to act in your own best interest,” she said.

“I think that's logical, I think that's fair and whilst I obviously want to see targeted things and people supported, I'd like a bit more money in my own pocket.

“I wouldn't mind something done on tax – but that doesn't necessarily mean it will happen or that I would be in anything other than a minority in this budget.”

Tax cuts

When Shane suggested Ciara may actually be in the “absolute majority”, she said: “Well, you never really hear anyone really say it”.

“Everyone is like, ‘Oh no, we need more pensions and that’ and I have no problem with that but I know that, as someone who still has four kids all still at home and all still in education, I wouldn't mind a bit of a tax break.”

When Ciar said she also wants to see more investment in infrastructure, Shane insisted that the country is already “spending billions on infrastructure”.

He said he does not believe the problem with infrastructure is how much we are spending but rather, how we are spending it.