Collectively, pre-budget submissions from different interest groups suggest feelings of betrayal and disappointment, but also deep engagement with the possibilities for a small, wealthy country to fix what is broken.

In June, the Department of Finance published 51 of last year’s submissions, a “representative sample”, with the aim to “increase transparency around the pre-budget process and allow an insight into the many demands made of the Minister for Finance in the run-up to the budget each year”. It received more than 800 submissions, including from Social Justice Ireland (SJI), which emphasised increased global volatility but also “long-standing challenges that stretch back ... housing, homelessness, poverty and inadequate social infrastructure ... We are wealthier than at any time in our history, and yet almost 630,000 people are living below the poverty line.”

SJI emphasises, as do other submissions, the “common good” and the need for unprecedented corporate tax receipts being invested wisely, including in relation to energy transformation. Some of the submissions focus on the need to plan for an ageing population. According to Census 2022, there were 1,048,985 people aged over 60 living in Ireland, an increase of 19.7 per cent on Census 2016, while Central Statistics Office projections show the population aged 65 will increase by 70 per cent by 2040; an increase of more than half a million........

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