Finance Bill 2025 [Certified Money Bill]: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-16
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Cathal Byrne (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel

In the absence of our finance spokesperson, Senator Joe O'Reilly, I will speak on behalf of the Fine Gael side of the House. We will support the Finance Bill, which is based on supporting young people to buy their first house, ensuring we have a reduction in cost and more viability in the apartment sector by reducing VAT, ensuring we keep jobs across Ireland through a VAT cut for hospitality and hairdressing and ensuring the coffee shops that employ so many people throughout the country will continue to be viable in 2026.
I listened to the contribution from Sinn Féin and I have to say we do not agree with it on the basis that some of the recommendations it tabled, including an attempt to try to block the VAT cut for apartments, would ensure apartment building is more expensive. As was stated in the debate we had on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill, we have to be serious about ensuring that first-time buyers get access to much-needed homes. If we do not support the private sector to encourage house building, the reality is the State cannot build all of the houses we need. We must support the private sector to ensure we have house building. One of the key measures in this is ensuring viability for apartment blocks, which is so important in urban areas, such as here in Dublin and in our larger cities.
I also dispute the fact that Sinn Féin is in favour of jobs through foreign direct investment, as it states.
I do not see how voting against the Finance Bill, which contains key amendments to ensure viability in research and development and innovation and key measures to attract foreign direct investment, protects jobs, including the vital jobs that I see in businesses like Danone in Wexford, which employs so many people. Those jobs are a direct result of Government policy to incentivise foreign multinationals to come here and provide employment and tax revenue.
On Thursday, we will be debating the Appropriation Bill, which will see some of the largest increases ever delivered across key sectors, including tackling the cost of living with large increases targeted at the most vulnerable in society, as well as one of the most significant increases in disability services that the State has ever seen. That is so important and I would encourage Sinn Féin to support it on Thursday as part of the Appropriations Bill when it comes before the House.
Fine Gael is supporting this measure and will certainly be voting in favour of today's Finance Bill.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16