Wednesday

22 July 2026

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Good morning. Budget 2027 now has its spending limits, Google has put a €10bn value on its Irish footprint and Dublin’s criminal courts are moving deeper into disruption. Abroad, oil is back above $91 as the US-Iran conflict escalates, while investors keep betting on aircraft, takeovers and AI. Let’s get into it.

1. Budget 2027 Parameters Are Set. The Government has agreed an €8.5bn package for Budget 2027, which will be announced on Tuesday, 6 October, with €7bn allocated to spending increases and €1.5bn to tax measures. The Summer Economic Statement is being published now because ministers are about to leave for the long summer recess and the Government needs to set the broad tax-and-spending limits before detailed Budget negotiations continue. It is not the Budget itself, but the financial box every department and lobby group must now fit inside. Even that box is tighter than it looks: IFAC estimates existing overruns, demographic pressures, inflation, capital commitments and a future public-sector pay deal could leave only about €800m for genuinely new current spending.

2. Google Adds To Its €10bn Irish Footprint. Research commissioned by Google estimates its operations added €10bn to the Irish economy last year and supported up to 18,000 jobs. The company also unveiled The Bakery, its newest Dublin office, adding 325,000 sq ft to its Irish property footprint and space for up to 1,900 staff from next year. Google’s Irish scale now runs through direct jobs, suppliers, data centres, offices and the businesses using its platforms.

3. Dublin’s Criminal Courts Shutdown Is Extending. Criminal legal-aid solicitors will continue withdrawing from almost all Dublin cases for three days next week unless Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan engages over the new €520 flat fee. Just 174 legal-aid certificates were issued over the past fortnight, compared with an ordinary two-week average of roughly 3,600, while 179 solicitors have formally left the national panel. A fee dispute is becoming a functioning-courts problem.

4. Domestic Growth Rises As Prices Stay High. Bank of Ireland expects the domestic economy to grow 3.5% this year, with consumer spending and wages remaining resilient, despite forecasting a 3% fall in headline GDP caused largely by multinational volatility. It has also raised its 2026 housing-completion forecast to 39,600. The stronger outlook comes with a catch as inflation is expected to remain elevated as fuel supports end and recent energy-price increases feed through.

5. The LDA Could Gain Stronger Land Powers. Housing Minister James Browne is seeking cabinet approval for legislation expanding the Land Development Agency’s compulsory-purchase powers and allowing Government to direct commercial semi-states to transfer suitable land. The proposed powers could help assemble sites for housing and mixed-use developments, including in urban development zones. Cabinet approval would advance the Bill, not enact it; the practical test will be which stalled sites the expanded remit can actually unlock.

Donald Trump threatened a new attack on Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site after an 11th consecutive night of US strikes pushed oil above $91 a barrel. In Britain, Andy Burnham used his first cabinet meeting to promise fiscal discipline, while British Airways called for aviation-tax cuts to support routes and investment. Dublin-headquartered AerCap ordered 15 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners for delivery through 2033, as Bombardier agreed a Saudi arrangement covering up to 60 business jets, including 12 firm orders. Frasers Group lifted its Hugo Boss stake above 30%, crossing Germany’s mandatory-bid threshold, while OpenAI reportedly reached 10 million users across Codex and ChatGPT Work, it's agent facility, as the challenge to Claude continues ahead of both firms IPO plans. War is lifting energy risk, but aerospace, takeovers and AI spending are still on the up.

Finance & Markets

Finance & Markets carries a tone of unresolved bets this week, with Dublin's biggest corporate dramas still hanging on votes and deadlines rather than done deals.

DCC's takeover saga rumbles on. KKR and Energy Capital Partners lifted their offer again, to 6,797.22p a share, or roughly £5.81 billion, adding a potential payment of up to £1.25 a share tied to proceeds from the sale of DCC's Nexora technology unit. However, the Irish Takeover Panel has only extended the firm-offer deadline to July 27, and DCC has still not confirmed board backing for the sweetened terms, with major investors Aviva Investors and Fidelity International having previously opposed the deal as undervaluing the company. The energy distributor's own trading update showed first-quarter operating profit ahead of last year, and shareholders separately used its AGM to vent frustration at the drawn-out process.

PTSB's Bawag sale faces a comparable split heading into the July 30 EGM. Proxy advisers disagree sharply: ISS backed the €1.62 billion deal despite calling the price "understandably disappointing," while Glass Lewis urged investors to reject it after PTSB shares traded above the €2.97 offer price, calling the bid "increasingly tenuous" given the rally in European bank stocks since the deal was struck in April. None of this changes the arithmetic, since the government's 57.5 per cent stake, already committed to backing Bawag, makes the outcome close to certain regardless of how minority holders vote.

In payments, Stripe and Advent International's reported $53 billion joint approach for PayPal remains exactly that, a reported bid. PayPal's board has signalled the offer looks inadequate, and no revised terms or formal response have emerged since.

Markets themselves stayed buoyant. AIB and Bank of Ireland drove the Iseq higher on Tuesday as European bank, tech and mining stocks rallied, even as oil pushed past $91 a barrel on the back of the Iran conflict. Bank of Ireland's economists flagged that same oil move as a risk to their 2027 inflation forecast, alongside strengthening machinery and data-centre investment linked to weight-loss drug demand from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

Watch whether KKR's consortium firms up a binding DCC offer before Monday's deadline, since a lapse would reopen the entire process just as shareholders' patience wears thin.

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

Wednesday - By The Numbers

17%: The first-quarter rise in machinery and equipment investment, with Bank of Ireland linking much of the increase to pharmaceutical expansion and AI-related data-centre spending.

39,600: Bank of Ireland’s revised forecast for housing completions in 2026, up from its previous estimate of 37,500.

€315m: The dividend Scotiabank Ireland paid to its Canadian parent after profits rose sharply.

174: The number of criminal legal-aid certificates issued over the past fortnight, compared with an ordinary two-week average of roughly 3,600.

€149m: The value recovered by the Criminal Assets Bureau from organised crime last year.

€10m: The amount Irish Rail says could have been saved by withdrawing earlier from its failed traffic-management technology project.

Tesco is putting its groceries on Uber Eats and Deliveroo in Britain, despite already running its own 20-minute delivery service from around 1,800 stores. Apparently one app promising milk at speed was not enough. The supermarket shop is becoming less of a weekly outing and more of an emergency response system, where forgotten butter, batteries and a suspiciously urgent packet of biscuits can now arrive before the kettle has properly boiled.

The Read - The Irish Times - 'Super passport' would drive growth for Irish companies, study finds

A survey of more than 120 compliance experts for the Compliance Institute finds strong backing among Irish financial firms for the EU's proposed 28th regime, a single legal framework that would let companies operate across all member states without navigating 27 separate company law systems. Compliance Institute chief Michael Kavanagh calls it a potential "game changer," though he flags that tax, social security and employment protections still need to be reconciled with existing national rules. The system realistically will not arrive before 2028, but the groundwork for how it reshapes cross-border expansion is being laid now. The Link: 'Super passport' would drive growth for Irish companies, study finds

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