Good morning.
Simon Harris and Jack Chambers presented their spring economic forecasts on Tuesday, revealing that despite the continuing economic turmoil, projections for the surplus have increased from €5 billion at the time of the budget last year to more than €9 billion now.
Of course, this is all driven by corporation tax revenues which the Department of Finance is blue in the face telling us are unreliable and could disappear – in part anyway – pretty quickly. If that does happen, we will suddenly be in the mother and father of fiscal squeezes. But there’s no sign of it happening yet.
Consequently, as we report today, the surplus numbers are likely to lead to significantly greater demands on the Government to extend the current fuel supports and reintroduce energy credits in the budget. And because it cannot reasonably claim it doesn’t have the money, resisting the demand for those giveaways will become much harder.
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It’s a lot more politically complicated to make the case that, yes, we have the money but it would not be sensible to spend it, or at least to spend it in the volumes that people are demanding. Welcome to the tricky politics of the surplus.
News here.
And Cliff Taylor’s analysis here.
US-Iran talks uncertain
Uncertainty surrounded the future of peace talks between the US and Iran on Tuesday night as vice-president JD Vance postponed his trip to Pakistan for the negotiations after Iran failed to respond to US proposals.
President Donald Trump weighed in (of course) telling CNBC he didn’t want to extend the ceasefire, which expires today. But then he said he would. The Iranian foreign minister accused the US of an “act of war” in blockading Iranian ports and targeting a commercial vessel. Markets, which had stabilised somewhat at the prospect of peace talks, wobbled again.
Here’s our overnight summary from today’s page one.
Expect the story to dominate the news today.
Varadkar comments cause a stir
There has been simmering anger at Leo Varadkar in Fine Gael since his comments about rural Ireland on a podcast at the weekend. On the podcast, the former Fine Gael leader said: “What’s in the interest of farmers and the agriculture industry is by and large not in the interest of Ireland as a nation.
“And farmers and people in that sector don’t quite realise that yet. They still see themselves as the people who bring money and jobs into Ireland ... a lot of the time they bring costs on Ireland,” he said.
“People in rural Ireland are very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that, you know, ‘we’re the real workers, we’re the ones paying all the bills, we’re the ones feeding the country’,” the former Fine Gael leader said.
“I think maybe we need to be a little bit more blunt in urban Ireland and say ‘actually, that’s not the case’.
“We’re the ones paying all the bills and you’re the ones who are in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don’t get and maybe we need to sit around the table and have an honest discussion about some of that kind of stuff.”
Now several TDs have openly criticised the former leader, with some of them calling for an apology. Jack Horgan-Jones has the story.
Meanwhile, Arthur Beesley digs into the former taoiseach’s claims.
The arrest of Daniel Kinahan and attempt to extradite him from Dubai will be a huge story as it unfolds over the coming weeks and months. Conor Lally reveals the State’s strategy.
Danny Healy-Rae has lost his seat on the agriculture committee after withdrawing his support for the Government.
Miriam Lord also has thoughts.
Best reads
Budget pressures emerge in the health service. Won’t be the last we hear of this.
Patsy McGarry on the vexed problem of school patronage. The fact is, while lots of parents are in favour of the Catholic Church divesting of school patronage in principle, they are perfectly happy with their kids’ schools and don’t want it to change.
Now you don’t read a story like this every day: How a teacher ended up in a car chase with gardaí after ‘unwittingly’ eating cannabis-laced cake.
Good piece explaining the prospect of an article 26 referral by the President.
Playbook
Dáil: The Greens have a private members motion this morning for Earth Day.
Leaders’ Questions at 12 noon. A few pieces of not very contentious Government legislation. Statements on the European Council meeting. The weekly votes. A quiet enough day in the Dáil. Though Fine Gael is also planning to move the motion for the byelections.
The Seanad has three sets of statements – on homelessness, alternatives to prison and disability matters.
Another hectic day at the committees. There are discussions at the Disabilities Committee on living arrangements for people with disabilities; on vaccines at the Health Committee; on road safety at the Transport Committee; on salmon conservation at the Environment Committee; on competitiveness at the Enterprise Committee; on “dark money flowing through the Irish financial sector” at the Finance Committee; on planning for the EU presidency at the EU Affairs Committee; and on various other matters which can be found here.
