Tom McDonnell: Government should abandon populist tax cuts in Budget 2024

We need to protect low-income households from cost-of-living pressures — not half-heartedly through once-off measures but through structural uplifts in working age and old age payments

While net household wealth has reached record levels and corporate profits are healthy, deprivation rates are on the rise. File picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews

The Irish economy is in an unusual place. It’s been buffeted by Brexit, by the shock and disruption of the covid crisis, and is still working its way through an energy price shock and the cost-of-living crisis.

There is a sense of winners and losers: Net household wealth has reached record levels and corporate profits are healthy but deprivation rates are on the rise.