Competitive budget?

star gazer

It's important for Irish competitiveness that the budget does give Ireland a good chance at a sustainable future. Politicians take credit when the economy does well and run for cover when things aren't doing so well. The government is a major player and so not everything is their fault and not everything is their 'excellence'. Ireland is at a crossroads after our recent great economic health. We can go forward with investment in efficient and productive infrastructure and a turning of the steering wheel towards research and development and innovative business ventures. This year infrastructural spending is down on last year and the competition authority is not effectively dealing with dominant player(s) in the economy which are able to stiffle smaller and possibly more innovative companies to compete. The result is that we don't have the best companies doing the most business, we just have the best positioned (in a market dominating sense) holding the market to ransome because they can.
The budget needs to focus on getting the resources to the cutting edge companies in terms of grant aiding, it needs to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get started, get a product to the patent office and develope the internal structures necessary to expand indefinitely which is the goal of most companies. The use of universities (and ITs) research facilities should be enhanced and increasingly used as tools for businesses.
There needs to be a strong, purposeful look at what transportation infrastructure should be focused on and whatever amount of money borrowed/pension reserve fund used necessary to get ireland a transport network capable of leading the world competitiveness advantage stakes should be used. No more games, political leadership married with a comprehensive business vision to drag ireland kicking and sreaming into the twenty first century must occur. The roll out of broadband and to all urban areas at least should be a no brainer given at this stage.
The budget looks set to be like getting half a dozen hairs cut when you really needed to get a whole new look. 30 in competitiveness tables, we must have some kind of record for habing one of the fastest transformations in history and are now in danger of drowning in our own success. It's not too late, but if the problems aren't faced up to, it will be.

star gazer

Well the retention of the business expansion scheme should be a welcome decision for the future of small businesses. Some of the other extended tax breaks however do seem to be a little excessive, especially for the building of car parks and so on because that industry is consistently under-supplying demand. Allowing the extra income from these projects to continue to be so good is simply taking away resources from house building road building and so we still have very high inflation in these areas.

The usual staelth taxes are making it more expensive to do business and live in this country, particularly the 5 cent on petrol on diesel for both business and commuters and the stagnation of the tax bands. They have reduced the rate of tax and compensated for that by ensuring more people pay at the top rate. Maybe there is a case for extra spending, but there has to be some degree of competence with which to spend the money, public services aren't reflecting a sufficient degree of competence in the governing of the country...transport, health and what is coming out in the comptroller and auditor generals report are the examples of questionable leadership.

Decentralisation is a gimmick with which you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

not rocking the boat has it's advantages in business confidence and stability, but at the end of the day budgeting isn't just about today, it is about tommorrow.