Budget leftovers, takeover bids and one very expensive electric car.

07 October 2026

Good morning. Budget 2027 is still doing most of the talking today, but the useful bit now is what the measures actually mean for investment, skills, housing and the State’s finances once the speeches are over. We have the main business consequences, the market reaction and a few numbers worth keeping. Normal non-Budget business resumes tomorrow. Let’s get into it.

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1. Budget Gives Business A Tax Trim. Capital Gains Tax is falling from 33% to 31%, while tax on investment funds and life-assurance products drops from 38% to 35%. The R&D tax credit is also being widened and start-up relief extended to 2030. None is revolutionary alone, but together they make yesterday’s Budget a little friendlier to investing, starting and growing a business in Ireland.

2. €150m Goes After The AI Skills Problem. Budget 2027 is putting €150m over three years into workforce development, including AI and digital skills, alongside 1,420 additional higher-education places in health and social care. Enterprise Ireland also gets €3m to establish Startup Ireland. Government has spent plenty of time talking about the jobs AI may change; now there is actual money attached to preparing people for them.

3. Housing Gets Another Large Cheque. Government has allocated €3bn for social housing next year, with funding for 11,250 new homes, while more than €1bn for Starter Homes is intended to support another 8,500. Help to Buy relief rises to €35,000 and the Rent Tax Credit increases too. There is money here for both supply and buyers. The harder number will eventually be how many additional homes actually reach the market.

4. AI May Flatten Careers, But Klaviyo Is Still Hiring. Innovation Minister James Lawless has warned that automating graduate and middle-management work could eventually leave companies short of experienced leaders. Klaviyo offers an interesting counterpoint. Klavyio's Dublin EMEA headquarters has around 100 staff, plans to grow to 250 and remains committed to early-career hiring. AI may remove tasks faster than jobs, but firms still need somewhere for tomorrow’s managers to start.

5. Irish Companies Are Back In The Takeover Queue. Kenmare Resources shares jumped more than 25% after Abu Dhabi-backed IRH made a non-binding takeover approach, with a 17 November deadline to make a firm offer or walk away. Irish Continental Group is much further along: its €8-a-share management buyout goes before the High Court for sanction on 10 November. Same M&A market, very different ends of the process.

US officials say warnings of a possible Iranian drone attack prompted the removal of 12 bombers from RAF Fairford in the UK, keeping Middle East risk uncomfortably close to Europe. Google has signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy for 890MW of new nuclear power, another reminder of how much electricity the AI buildout is starting to demand. Paramount Skydance’s $110bn takeover of Warner Bros Discovery has now completed, while AMD plans to substantially increase chip supply in 2027 as AI demand keeps climbing. In France, Marine Le Pen is proposing a 60%-of-GDP debt ceiling and annual deficit reductions if elected, with borrowing costs ensuring fiscal promises are getting plenty of market attention.

Finance & Markets

Equities are celebrating while the bond market keeps quietly raising the price of money.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on Tuesday, a day after the US 10-year Treasury yield hit a 24-year high before easing to 5.28 per cent. Economists disagree on why yields are rising: endless deficits, a flood of AI-linked borrowing, or a shift to scarcer global capital. Alphabet's ten-year bond priced 85 basis points over Treasuries in August, up from 63 in February, a spread being the extra yield investors demand for company risk. S&P estimates that a sustained one-point rise in US yields trims eurozone growth by about 0.3 percentage points, and the euro hit a 17-month low against the dollar on Monday amid French deficit worries. Ireland's 10-year yield was 3.7 per cent on 30 September.

Takeover pricing shows where investors doubt the headlines. Kenmare rose more than 25 per cent after a non-binding approach from Abu Dhabi's IRH, which must declare a firm intention by 17 November or walk away. PTSB traded at €3 in Dublin and €3.10 in London, above Bawag's agreed €2.97, although Axis has not secured funding for its possible €1.74bn offer. Barings' possible €1.386 a share for Ires Reit, which its board would be minded to recommend, sits just under net asset value of €1.388, the property portfolio's worth after debt, yet Janus Henderson and Fidelity sold between €1.28 and €1.30.

Watch the NTMA's 15 October bond auction, with details due Monday, to see how Irish yields clear after Budget 2027.

In Thursday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Health & Pharma.

Wednesday - By The Numbers

€39.1bn: The corporation tax receipts forecast for 2027, up from €34.1bn this year.

€654.5m: The Budget funding allocated to home-energy upgrades.

€211bn: The value of Irish pharmaceutical and medtech goods sold in 2025, double the €105bn recorded in 2019. Exports reached €164.2bn.

$11.1bn: The amount SoftBank raised in its latest high-yield bond sale, described using LSEG data as the largest such corporate bond sale globally on record.

€10.5m: RTÉ Commercial Enterprises’ post-tax profit in 2025, down from €11.6m a year earlier as revenue fell 7% to €18.6m.

Yesterday’s Worth Your Time had Irish founders Creatime putting three grams of creatine into a protein bar, which feels like the natural next step in the protein-maxxing economy Glanbia has spent years feeding. Across the Atlantic, Trump would rather AI did some rebranding too, signing an order for the US government to call it “Super Intelligence”. And, depending on how well yesterday’s Budget went for you, the Business Post has lovely reviews of the new €54,995 Skoda Peaq or €72,085 electric Mercedes GLC which may now be somewhere in your eyeline. If you want to work that bit out first, our Budget breakdown is on LinkedIn and Instagram.

The Read – RTÉ – Alarming Truth About Budget 2027 Buried In Detail

David Murphy looks past the headline €9bn surplus forecast for next year and at the corporation-tax dependence underneath it. The Department of Finance classifies €23bn of multinational corporation tax as potentially transient and, stripping that out, the underlying deficit is forecast at €13.4bn next year and €20bn by 2029. IFAC says just three companies pay nearly half of all corporation tax and estimates Government plans to spend roughly six in every seven euros collected. After a Budget full of new spending and tax measures, this is the useful second read on how much of Ireland’s fiscal room depends on receipts that may not last. Link: Alarming Truth About Budget 2027 Buried In Detail

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