Space and Ireland’s Secret Service: The things you might have missed from Budget 2027
The European Space Agency will get a €13m budget injection as part of Budget 2027.
You have heard about childcare, you have heard about social welfare, and you have certainly heard about the changes to the tax system.
Budget 2027 has come and gone, with speeches delivered and promises made.
But while the main parts of the budget have been spoken and written about at length, these may have been missed.
The European Space Agency will get a €13m budget injection as part of Budget 2027.
This will see increased investment in Ireland's participation in the European Space Agency, enabling Irish companies to compete for a greater volume of contracts and supporting growth in the Irish space sector.
Ireland supports ESA projects in areas including earth observation, secure communications, navigation systems, space transportation, and human and robotic exploration.
It is also a “key element” of Ireland’s National Space Strategy.
Once again, Ireland’s Secret Service has been allocated €2m in the budget.
The directorate of military intelligence, otherwise known as J2, the main intelligence branch of the Defence Forces, has a primary objective to work with the Government and provide information on the security of the State.
Its budget, however, has remained stable in recent years, with it last receiving an uplift in Budget 2020, increasing from €1.25m per year to its current €2m.
As part of James Lawless’ research and innovation budget, which falls under the department of further and higher education, money will be put aside for “Ireland’s high-performance computing capacity”.
This will result in continued support for the renewal of Ireland’s High-Performance Computing capacity to enable Ireland to compete in key future research areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, including through participation in EU-led programmes such as the AI Factory Antenna initiative.
Some €15m has been allocated to rural pubs, which finance minister Simon Harris will help “keep the doors open”.
The exact details of the scheme will have to be worked out between the Tánaiste and enterprise minister Peter Burke in the coming weeks.
However, it is expected that this will apply to draught beers.
The budget has allocated €58.7 million to continue the support for the construction of 24 new fire stations as well as the renovation or upgrading of 15 existing fire-service facilities.
There will also be upgrading of national training capabilities and communications infrastructure, an ongoing programme of fleet renewal and investment in frontline and specialist response equipment across the fire services capital programme.
While media minister Patrick O’Donovan may not have gotten his cultural cards, he did get funding for other arts projects.
This includes an increase of €3.8m for the National Cultural Institutions who continue to welcome over four million visitors annually to view and appreciate the national collections, typically without any entry cost.
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