Ireland to tap multinational tax windfall to hike infrastructure spending by 30%
Ireland has for years failed to turn a multinational-driven corporate tax boom into improving creaking energy, water and housing supply. The IMF recently estimated that Ireland's infrastructure lags competitor economies by around 32%.
"We believe that there's a need to immediately implement a step change in the scale and quality of public investment in critical sectors," Prime Minister Micheal Martin told a news conference on Tuesday.
($1 = 0.8550 euros)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
41 minutes ago
- The Independent
Record installations of solar panels, batteries and heat pumps so far in 2025
A record number of solar panels, batteries and heat pumps have been installed in UK homes and buildings in the first six months of 2025, figures show. Data from MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme), the quality mark for small-scale renewables, found there were more than 172,000 certified installations between January and June this year. That is up 37% from the same period in 2024 and a third above the previous record high start to the year, in 2023, the figures show. The MCS said the jump in installations was being driven by three technologies: solar panels, electric heat pumps and battery storage. The top technology is solar panels, with 123,000 certified installations in the first six months of 2025 – a record that breaks the previous January-to-June high set in 2012. There were more than 18,000 installations of batteries, which can allow households to capture excess power from solar panels or charge up from the grid when electricity is cheap and then use it at more expensive peak times to cut bills. The figure is more than double the near 8,000 batteries installed in the same period in 2024, the MCS said. Meanwhile, certified installations of highly efficient heat pumps, which run on electricity to draw heat from the air or ground to warm homes and heat water, reached 30,000 in the first half of the year, up 12% on the first half of 2024. The figures also show that there were almost 50,000 renewable installations on newbuild properties, accounting for 28% of the total for the year so far, and significantly up on the first half of 2024, when they made up 21% of the 125,000 installations overall. The MCS said that, with the Future Homes Standard set to mandate solar panels and low carbon heating in newbuild homes from 2027, there was massive potential for growth in the low carbon tech industry as the Government attempts to boost house building. And the organisation said one of the key drivers behind the increasing number of renewable installations was government financial support, through schemes such as the £7,500 grant for new heat pumps to replace boilers in homes. The latest available figures from January to March show that about three quarters of heat pump installations were wholly or partially supported with government funding. Ian Rippin, chief executive at MCS, said: 'Across all renewable technologies, we are seeing a dramatic rise in the number of installations being delivered into homes, helping to reduce energy bills for consumers and drive down emissions. 'Crucially, there are also more MCS certified installers than ever before, which means a growing capacity to deliver high-quality installations at volume into people's homes.' Miatta Fahnbulleh, minister for energy consumers, said: ' People can save hundreds of pounds off their energy bills when installing renewable and low-carbon technologies like solar panels, heat pumps and batteries. 'So, it is no wonder that installations in the first six months of 2025 have broken records, as households recognise it just makes financial sense.'
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Hot tub boss praised by PM launches broadside over wealth exodus
The boss of a hot tub company lauded by Sir Keir Starmer for driving economic growth has attacked the government, saying he can understand why 'masses' of wealthy people are leaving the country. Rob Carlin, the managing director of a Derbyshire-based manufacturer of hot tubs and swim spas, criticised the government's tax raid after his son's private school went into administration, and said that he 'cannot blame the masses who are leaving Britain right now'. Downing Street said Carlin's company, Superior Wellness, had been backed by UK Export Finance, the government's export credit agency, to secure a £2.3 million facility 'to accelerate exports in America, Europe and the Middle East'. No 10 said the firm's expansion showed the government was 'empowering British small and medium-sized businesses to access the largest markets in the world, supporting the creation of jobs and driving growth at home'. Carlin, who has been named in The Times top 50 most ambitious business leaders, shared on LinkedIn that his son's private school, Mount St Mary's College and Barlborough Hall, was going into administration after 183 years. The school blamed the government's introduction of VAT on school fees and the removal of business rates relief for independent schools. He wrote last week: 'My son's school went into administration today after 183 years of operating. 'Sad news for the 500 children that need to find a new school during half term, the parents and of course the teachers. I guess this shows the way the UK is going right now?' Britain is on track to lose a record 16,500 millionaires this year as tax increases and falling economic confidence drives wealthy residents abroad. The latest Henley Private Wealth Migration Report, released earlier this year, predicted that in 2025 the UK would lose twice as many high-net-worth individuals as China and ten times as many as Russia. Analysis by Bloomberg of five million company filings found a spike in departing business leaders in recent months, including more than 4,400 disclosing an overseas move in the last year. Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said: 'This is yet another embarrassment for a government which does not understand business or the motivations of entrepreneurs. 'We need fewer press releases about hot tubs written by ministers who've been told to make themselves look busy or face the sack, and more action to reverse the damaging choices that Labour have made.' Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, commented: 'Mr Carlin is saying what we are all thinking. This government has punished business, vindictively forced the closure of private schools and raised taxes on the wealth creators.' • The Secret Agent: 'Fine, get rid of the non-doms, but what's the plan to generate wealth?' Rachel Reeves has extended the Conservatives' crackdown on non-domiciled residents by removing the tax perk entirely, replacing it with a residence-based system. The chancellor also announced that British inheritance tax would apply to the global assets of wealthy foreigners who have lived in the UK for more than ten years. The government said: 'This pro-business government is taking bold action to back British companies as part of the Plan for Change, introducing the toughest laws on late payments in the G7 through our brand-new Small Business Plan, as well as a long-term Industrial Strategy to give businesses the certainty they need to grow. 'Ending tax breaks for private schools will raise £1.8 billion a year by 2029-30, helping us to fund vital public services including supporting children in the state sector.' Carlin was contacted for comment.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Anthony Solomons obituary: combative chairman of Singer & Friedlander
Chasing his daughter round the garden of their north London home, Anthony Solomons fell heavily against the wall of the house, fractured his skull and broke his arm in five places. 'I was irritated with him because of a comment he had made,' said Jennifer, 'so I threw a jug of water at him and he slipped as he came running after me.' Solomons had to cancel a driving holiday in France and a trip to the IMF conference in Washington. He was not pleased with her. Solomons, universally known as Tony, took a similarly pugnacious approach to the many hurdles he encountered as the chairman of Singer & Friedlander, one of the last of the City of London's independent merchant banks. One commentator described him as 'forceful and occasionally combative': it appears he was never reluctant to give an errant employee the full benefit of his superior wisdom. 'He was tough and direct to work for,' said a longstanding colleague, John Hodson. 'He had not a lot of obvious softness, but he got results, and was immensely loyal to those around him.' In 1998, the year before Solomons stepped down, The Times said: 'Singer is one of the unsung heroes of British banking. It is no longer just a rather fuddy-duddy merchant bank: banking accounted for less than a quarter of 1997 profits. These days, the core is stockbroking and the future lies with fund management. It is in the nature of Tony Solomons, its entrepreneurial chairman, never to stand still.' Insurance broking and long-term care were other areas that attracted Solomons, and he later diversified into property. But he sometimes made misjudgments, admitting 'we got egg on our faces' through making loans to Peter Clowes, the key figure in the Barlow Clowes scandal, to buy Buckley's Brewery. Barlow Clowes was a financial adviser that promised to invest the savings of mainly retired customers, including ultra-cautious former nurses, teachers and civil servants, in what they had been persuaded was low-risk UK government stock. But he drew them in with promises of unrealistically high interest rates and operated a Ponzi scheme that stole millions of pounds to finance the directors' extravagant lifestyles. It collapsed in 1988 owing £190 million to 18,000 investors. Solomons said he did not expect Singer to lose any money from its involvement. His belief in venture capital made him an early advocate of what is now known as private equity, acquiring, managing and reshaping companies to resell or float on the stock market. That made Solomons a natural supporter of the Thatcher government's 1980s privatisation campaign, but it also landed him in a spot of trouble. In 1985 Solomons was at the centre of a dispute over the British Telecommunications (now BT Group) stock market launch when it emerged that he had made £25,000 from a direct allocation of shares at the special flotation price. 'It was not at all clear that the BT flotation would be a success,' he said. 'And there was a great deal of arm-twisting about taking underwriting. Singer & Friedlander was offered five times the normal amount, and I took 50,000 shares.' Most public applicants were offered only 800. He sold the shares soon afterwards, and gave the profits to charity. While Solomons stressed that he had acted fairly and honestly throughout, Singer admitted an error of judgment in allocating BT shares to its directors, and said internal rules had been changed to prevent a repetition. The bank went through several owners before regaining its independence in 1987. Solomons stepped down from Singer in 1999, and the bank was finally sold six years later to Kaupthing Holdings, an Icelandic financial group. But Kaupthing collapsed as a result of the 2008 global financial crisis and Singer was wound up. An Isle of Man-based compensation scheme was not closed until last Nathan Solomons was born in London in 1930, the elder son of Leslie Solomons, a wholesale tobacconist, and Leslie's cousin, Susie Schneiders. They had a younger son, Kenneth, who went on to own a garage firm. Leslie died in 1938, and when war broke out the brothers were sent to prep school in Devon. Uncles kept an eye on them while Susie ran the carpool for the London branch of the Women's Voluntary Service. Tony and Kenneth went on to Oundle School in Northamptonshire, where Anthony remembered 'the food was awful and the rugby good'. Bizarrely, it being wartime, the boys were made to sing classical German lieder. Tony postponed National Service to qualify as an accountant with the firm Wilkins Kennedy. He joined the Dorset Yeomanry as a second lieutenant and was sent to Korea for the last three weeks of the war there. He was a keen marksman and reckoned to have paid for his mess bills with winnings from poker dice. He returned to live with his mother and brother in Hampstead, north London, working for an oil company, Lobitos, where he became chief accountant, played rugby and tennis, and joined the Young Conservatives. There he met Jean Golding, whom he married in 1957. They had two daughters, Nicola, a lawyer, and Jennifer, a public relations executive. Jean developed Parkinson's disease and died in 2018. In 1958 Solomons switched from oil to merchant banking. His uncle Barnett found him a job with Singer & Friedlander, where he became the chief executive in 1973 and the chairman three years later. A keen collector of watercolours, he established the Sunday Times/Singer & Friedlander watercolour competition, intending that it would be a source of pictures for a corporate collection at Singer. For several years it became a leading showcase for that style of painting. After the bank folded, the Royal Watercolour Society took over the sponsorship until the competition ended in 2020. Solomons's other passion was horse racing, and he was part of a consortium that made a failed bid for Epsom racecourse in 1994. He was a regular at the Cheltenham Festival, placing a £200 bet each year with the pledge that any winnings would go to the Injured Jockeys Fund. It was a while before he let Jennifer forget the water jug incident. 'I was not too popular at home,' she said, 'nor at the bank. I kept a low profile, leaving early in the morning and getting back late. They'd never seen so much of me at my office.' Anthony Solomons, merchant banker, was born on January 26, 1930. He died on July 3, 2025, aged 95
