Budget day is here and a major giveaway is planned

Its budget day, and a series of giveaways will see many families gain by thousands of euros over the next 12 months, as the Coalition seeks an electoral launch pad from today’s budget. Tax changes expected to make workers on average wages about €1,000 better off and a series of one-off payments in the coming months, including €250 in energy credits and two double payments of child benefit worth an extra €840 for families with three children, will be among the measures announced. Pat Leahy, Jennifer Bray and Cormac McQuinn have the details.
FBD Hotels & Resorts is understood to have been named preferred bidder for the Grand Hotel in Malahide on Dublin’s northside. Peter Flanagan has the details.
In our Your Money feature, Fiona Reddan looks to the UK to see what lessons on pension auto-enrolment can be learned, now that we know the Irish model will be launched in September 2025. If you’d like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money, the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
In our Your Money Q&A, a reader is having a hard time persuading their husband to make a will and wonders if there are any arguments that could be used to persuade him. Dominic Coyle offers a view.
In her weekly media column, Laura Slattery looks at the peculiar case of the British newspaper that used artificial intelligence to produce a review of a Van Gogh art exhibition by a long-dead critic.
Losses have risen at several companies related to the Titanic Quarter development in Belfast. The entities are controlled by successful businessman Dermot Desmond and Pat Doherty, the Harcourt Developments founder. Barry J Whyte examines the accounts.
A strange thing happened in China on Monday. As news emerged that manufacturing had declined for the fifth month in a row and that the services sector was stagnant, its stock market went wild. Cantillon explains why a bout of optimism has broken out in spite of the weak data sets.
Cantillon also looks at how legal bills continue to mount for Declan Ganley and his Rivada Networks business relating to cases in Munich and New York.
Irish manufacturing activity contracted in September, reversing three months of growth as output, employment and exports shrank, “mirroring” a slowdown across Europe and the rest of the world, a survey by AIB has found. Ian Curran reports.
In Me & My Money, patent attorney Angela Quinlan says there are industries where she knows an “extra margin has been built in on the first quote” and she will always ask for a discount on that price. She was talking to Tony Clayton-Lea.
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