The budget, it's a strange time of the year.
There's so much build up, incredible amounts of coverage, and a general sense of outright rage regardless of the budget. But here's the thing, most of it goes over our head.
We don't know the first thing about running a country, so it's tough for us to have an opinion on a lot of the topics being discussed, we just know what effects us and the people we know. So we've put together the rundown of all the general stuff that's been making the headlines.
- Minimum wage is set to go from €8.65 to €9.15 from January.
- The cost of cigarettes is going up by 50c.
- ATM and debit card transactions will now cost 12c per use, replacing the €5 stamp duty.
- There will be 2,260 new teaching positions, including 600 resource teacher positions, created next year.
- There will be 600 new Gardai recruited next year.
- Old Age Pension to increase by €3 a week.
- Fuel allowance will increase from €2.50 to €22.50 a week
- Child benefit to go up by €5 from January 2nd.
- Free GP care for children under the age of 12.
- Two weeks paid paternity leave for fathers.
- Free pre-school childcare for children aged between three and five-and-a-half years old before they attend primary school.