Jennifer Bray: All eyes on the general election as the jostling and shirking begins

If Taoiseach Simon Harris wanted to quell the speculation about an imminent general election, he has a funny way of doing it.
With the ink barely dry on the Budget 2025 book, the Fine Gael leader will gather his general election candidates in Dublin on Wednesday morning for a media opportunity which will also be attended by Ministers.
Of course they are intrinsically linked – it’s just smart politics to try to associate your new, unknown candidates with a multibillion euro bonanza. It didn’t take Opposition politicians long to accuse the Government on Tuesday of trying to “dazzle” the public with a long list of lump sum payments and tax cuts.
“You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out the rationale behind all of this,” Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall said. Indeed.
For any doubters, there are two clear indicators that Budget 2025 is an election launchpad.
First, the scale of the thing. The two finance Ministers were nearly blue in the face telling the media and public over the summer that this year’s cost-of-living package would be less than last year’s offering. What started as a €1.2bn intervention became a €1.5bn package, before rising to €2bn, and finally landing at €2.2bn.
Second, the timing. The vast bulk of the staggering €1.5bn lump sum payments will be handed out before the end of this year. Despite the fact inflation has dropped from a 10 per cent high to somewhere around two per cent, two €125 energy credits will be rolled out to all homes, regardless of income, before and after Christmas. This will cost an eye watering €500m.
Instead of just one month of a double child benefit payment, there will be two – one in November, one in December. The same goes for welfare payments, with a double payment in October and a Christmas bonus a few weeks later. The cost of both these “double doubles” is nearly a billion euro.
No one seriously believes that the Government parties squeezed literally all their goodies into the three exact months when they wouldn’t be having a general election. The coming weeks will see the Coalition parties jostle to take credit for various different measures announced in Budget 2025.
But where there’s jostling, there will also be shirking. The only real surprise on Tuesday was the introduction of the so-called mansion tax which will come in at midnight, and will see a six per cent stamp duty on properties worth €1.5 million.
The only real surprise yesterday was the introduction of the so-called mansion tax – a 6 per cent stamp duty rate applying to the portion of sale prices above €1.5 million.
Fine Gael sources, speaking privately, are keen to point out that this was a measure “introduced by a Fianna Fáil Minister,” as one TD put it. Another pointed out that it would only impact on a small number of affluent constituencies, mainly in Dublin.
It’s interesting that the changes to inheritance tax thresholds (trumpeted by Fine Gael) will cost €88m, while the revenue raised from the “mansion tax” will likely raise around €80m. It won’t have a massive impact on the housing market, but is an interesting side-battle between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, even if, as one Government TD said, he had heard “not a dicky bird” of a complaint about it.
The Green Party, meanwhile, seemed content enough with their own spoils. Free transport for under 9s, a slightly slimmed down “baby boost”, a victory on the introduction of the zoned residential land tax after they marched to the top of the hill. If their experience from the recent local and European elections is anything to go by, though, they may still find their Coalition partners turning on them in the heat of battle.
Let the games begin.