⚖️ Budget maths, fresh investment & a bigger finance target

25 August 2026

Good morning. IFAC has wasted no time questioning the Budget maths, while fresh investment, a bigger financial-services jobs target and a Moody’s upgrade give the morning a rather better second half. Abroad, tariffs, Iran and European gas prices keep things lively. Let’s get into it.

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1. IFAC Puts A Number On The Budget Problem. We wondered yesterday how long it would be before Ireland’s fiscal watchdog issued its next Budget warning. The answer: a matter of hours. IFAC says Budget 2027 could cost considerably more than its headline package once existing commitments are counted, with around €1.4bn of likely 2026 overruns, another €1bn-plus public-pay bill next year and pre-committed capital spending already eating into the room available. Yesterday was about what Government might give back but today the numbers are called into question. 

2. Exponent Is Back, And Irish Tech Has Fresh Funding Too. Exponent has agreed to invest in Kildare-headquartered KTL, the 600-plus-person telecoms and power-infrastructure business with annual revenue above €100m. It follows the €70m-plus OFS investment we covered last week and the €750m continuation fund around H&MV, which valued that Irish engineering business at €1.4bn. Newcode is smaller but interesting for a different reason. The Norwegian legal-tech company, which builds AI and software tools used by law firms and legal teams, has raised €11m and doubled its Irish workforce to 60 since March. There is a clear appetite for Irish-linked infrastructure and specialist software at the minute.

3. Financial Services Gets A Bigger Jobs Target. Government wants employment in Ireland’s international financial-services sector to reach 70,000 by 2030 under its new strategy. That matters a little more to YMT readers than the average jobs target. Ireland already punches well above its size in funds, asset servicing, insurance, banking and fintech, making the sector one of the country’s most powerful high-value professional-services engines. The plan is to get bigger again through skills development, greater regional growth, fintech and sustainable finance, while attracting more international business to Ireland.

4. Moody’s Gives Ireland An Upgrade. Moody’s has raised Ireland’s sovereign credit rating from Aa3 to Aa2 and kept a positive outlook, returning the State to its strongest rating from the agency since 2010. Strong tax receipts, lower debt and economic resilience helped among other things. It sits quite comfortably beside IFAC’s warning rather than contradicting it. Ireland can have a very strong balance sheet and still make questionable choices about how quickly to spend from it.

5. Building Costs Are Moving Up Again. Commercial construction tender prices rose 3% in the first half of the year and 4% over the past 12 months, according to the SCSI, after cost growth had nearly disappeared in parts of the country late last year. Skilled labour, copper and other materials, along with Middle East-related supply disruption, are all adding pressure again. For projects already tight on viability, even a fairly modest rise in costs can be enough to make the projects fail.

Washington’s promised “economic D-Day” against Iran arrived with plenty of rhetoric but fewer immediate measures than markets feared, helping Brent settle around $92 after touching $93. The US-Canada trade fight has another date for the diary, with Trump saying tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, parts and steel will rise to 50% from 01 January. Shein, meanwhile, plans to list in Hong Kong on 01 September at a valuation of roughly $25.7bn to $26.8bn, barely a quarter of its 2022 peak. France may keep its supposedly exceptional levy on large-company profits for another year, while Goldman Sachs reckons European gas could need to top €100/MWh this winter if Middle East disruption keeps LNG supplies tight.

Legal & Regulatory

This week is mostly about how much enforcement actually hits, from Brussels-sized fines to Irish courts recalibrating where employer justification ends and discrimination begins.

The clearest European signal came from the Netherlands, where the Dutch data protection authority fined Uber €825m for deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without adequate explanation, the second-largest GDPR penalty on record after Ireland's own €1.2bn Meta fine, which is still under appeal. It is a reminder that Irish-based multinationals remain exposed to enforcement decided well outside the State.

Domestically, Coimisiún na Meán has asked TikTok for a full account of harmful content linked to the fatal M9 crash, with fines of up to 6% of global turnover available across five live investigations, a distinct and more serious track than the platform's separate remote-working changes.

The Labour Court overturned a €15,000 age-discrimination award for a Carlow firefighter forced to retire at 60, accepting that operational demands can objectively justify a lower mandatory retirement age, a useful marker for other public-safety employers.

Consumer law also moved. New right-to-repair regulations took effect, obliging manufacturers to support repairs, while the CCPC renewed its push to lift the Small Claims Court limit from €2,000 to €8,000, arguing the current threshold excludes ordinary car and home-improvement disputes from cheap redress.

The continued watch is whether O'Callaghan's flat-fee standoff with criminal lawyers escalates into further court disruption this autumn, after the Law Society told a Circuit Court judge this week that ensuring legal representation is a matter for Government, not for the Society itself.

In Wednesday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Finance & Markets.

Tuesday – On the Move…

Ann Kelleher, Ireland’s Semiconductor Advisory Council: The former Intel senior vice-president will chair the new body advising Government on Ireland’s chip strategy.

Keith Robinson, Dillon Eustace: The banking and capital-markets partner has become managing partner, succeeding Donnacha O’Connor.

Catherine Durkin, Imagine: The former Meta executive joins as director of sales and marketing, leading sales, marketing and product.

Tony Marron, Liberty Mutual: Liberty IT’s managing director adds a global engineering leadership role at its US parent while continuing to lead Liberty IT, which employs more than 900 people across Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Sytze Nijman, Calor Ireland: The former chief operating officer has been appointed CEO and will lead the company’s next phase of growth and investment in Ireland.

The CSO reported that Ireland’s population is now 5.53 million, which may go some way towards explaining how Tesco is shifting more than 70,000 meal deals every week. Freshways has just signed a €45m deal to keep supplying them, so lunch is covered. Anyone saving a few euro can then put it towards Samsung’s €2,259 foldable phone, adding to a fourth piece to the lunchtime entertainment. For those leading a slightly more luxurious life, Old Head has secured planning permission for eight new guest bedrooms, a relocated cigar room and a reworked members’ bar ahead of next year’s Ryder Cup, hoping to pull visitors from Adare. Those most likely to relax there are probably arriving by helicopter, but for the rest of us Aircoach has added 97-seat double-deckers to its Dublin Airport route, as if people in Dublin don’t spend enough time on those already.

The Read – European Central Bank – ECB analysts say an AI correction is on its way

A blog post from ECB analysts argues history is not on AI's side. Drawing on past technological revolutions, the piece warns that a correction in US tech valuations is likely, given how far current pricing has run ahead of fundamentals. Even a fully successful AI rollout may not save stocks, it argues, since companies could still fail to meet markets' inflated profit expectations. The post carries the usual central-bank caveat that it does not reflect official ECB policy, but the timing, from Europe's own monetary authority, adds weight to this. Link: ECB analysts say an AI correction is on its way

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