Universal Social Charge
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-25
============================================================

Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank Deputy Callaghan for acknowledging that there will be a personal income tax package. The aim is that it will deliver in line with the programme for Government commitments around progressive changes. We will look at the various options in the round. We will decide them on 6 October and will have plenty of opportunities to engage directly and to engage through this structure in advance of that. The point the Deputy made about the minimum wage increases not being gobbled up for low-income workers by USC is important. That is a principle that we have had for the last number of years and is certainly one that I would hope we could continue. There is another issue and I will say this honestly. Around a third of people are not paying any income tax or USC. I do not say that in a judgmental way but sometimes the some of the low-income workers we want to help have to be helped in ways other than the income tax system too. I said this earlier, but I really believe it. While I firmly believe a personal income tax package can play a role in assisting people with the cost of living and we will have one, it will also need to be supplemented by what we can do on the spending side to reduce structural costs that families face in areas like childcare, an issue I know the Deputy is passionate about with the carers' allowance. We will see the carers' allowance income threshold increase next month as an example. We need to look at all of this in the round. I look forward to continued engagement in the time ahead.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-25