Simon Harris Q&A: ‘Why is it that now I feel the poorest I have ever felt?’

Listeners to The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast were asked to submit questions to Hugh Linehan for his interview with Taoiseach Simon Harris. This is a full version of their conversation. Listen to the full podcast here, on your podcast app or visit the Inside Politics page for all our episodes.
JOSH: I’m a 25-year-old who has spent most of my life hovering around the poverty line. I was the first in my family to receive a college degree and to hold down long-term employment. I now earn €40,000 per year. Why is it that now I feel the poorest I have ever felt? And why should I believe in Fine Gael’s plans for the future when your party has governed for so long?
SIMON HARRIS: Firstly, to acknowledge that Josh, and indeed everyone in Ireland, has been living through the biggest inflationary crisis since the 1970s. And everywhere I go in Ireland people are pointing out to me that they’re really feeling the pinch. And they’re leaving me in absolutely no doubt that while inflation is falling, and economists can point to all of these signals, that hasn’t yet translated into terms of real benefits and people’s living standards at the end of the week and the like.
So what Josh is feeling is reflective, I think, of what many people right across our country are feeling. But I’d also say this: We’re now at a point where we genuinely do have both resources and plans.
And it’s rare in politics to have both. We have the money and we have the plans to really make great inroads. So, whether that’s in terms of Josh’s take-home pay, whether it’s in terms of an ability to buy a home and the supports we can put in place – if he plans on having a family, the childcare costs that we can reduce, or he mentioned college, even that ability to phase out the student-registration fee.
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So, there are many reasons to be positive and hopeful. I really want him to know, and I feel passionate about this, that there is now a trajectory. Inflation is falling. There is money in the kitty. A lot of people have said to me: ‘It’s grand the one-off things you’ve tried to do to help us make ends meet, but can you make some of them permanent, Simon? Can you reduce the structural costs in Ireland?’ That’s what we’re trying to do through the increased housing supply, changes in childcare, reducing costs of education and continuing to reduce personal tax.
CHRISTINE: If Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil form the basis for the next government, which of the smaller parties would you prefer to join the government? What do you make of the Labour plan to assemble a centre-left, sort of red-green platform before speaking to you or to anybody?
SH: We need to be really careful here because there’s an awful lot of people somewhat kind of predicting or calling the outcome of the election with great certainty. I am not one of those people. A vote hasn’t been cast, and I’m still very much in the business of looking people in the whites of their eyes right across the country and respectfully asking for their vote for Fine Gael and others are doing the like.
I suppose my party has a track record of working with many political parties. We’ve worked in a three-party coalition, one that I’m proud to lead today. My party’s position on who we won’t go into government with is clear, [it] won’t come as a surprise to any of your listeners that we won’t go into government with Sinn Féin.
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That’s not to say I’m being pejorative or rude, it’s just genuinely being honest. We have policy differences that we won’t go in with them on those grounds. But other than that, I am open to, to speaking to parties, obviously after the election… so I don’t mean this rudely or in any way rudely, but I think this idea of the smaller [parties] kind of talking to each other after the election is interesting on one level, but there’s a couple of issues about it.
I think, one, it might have been preferable if that happened before the election. So you’d actually go before the people with a common platform. So there could, so at least we could interpret the mandate that the public had [been] given a platform. I think that would have been one thing.
And then the second thing is: I don’t think anyone wants to see a coalition with four, five or six parties in it. I think that wouldn’t be good at this moment in time. I think we need a stable government. I’m currently leading and managing a three-party coalition. We’ve managed to deliver five budgets and that, but you start adding in four and five parties. I think that’s not very stable. My preference is to have a stable government.
I think there’s good ideas in lots of people’s manifestos, to be quite honest. I think the Labour Party has made constructive suggestions around housing, around the Land Development Agency and its mandate. I think the Green Party have played a constructive role, obviously, in government, in particular in public transport, I acknowledge that.
There’s areas where Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael agree. There’s also areas where we disagree in terms of how we’d approach certain issues from a policy point of view. I do have one concern and I want to say this very clearly and I would be saying this after an election too if I’m honoured enough to be in a position to try and form some form of a government.
Some parties, some of the so-called smaller parties are making a virtue of the fact that they haven’t set aside any money for tax changes and they say things like we’re not putting any money aside for tax cuts. This came up in the leaders’ debate the other night. That’s the equivalent, we just need to be honest, of saying there will be tax rises.
[ Simon Harris rejects coalition with multi-party left-wing allianceOpens in new window ]
What I’m definitely, definitely, definitely hearing from people… and I don’t like that label ‘squeezed middle’, but it’s real. I mean, there’s a lot of people out there who are saying: ‘Look, Simon, I’m working hard, I’m playing by the rules, and I’m still struggling to find ends meet. What are you going to do for us? ’
And I’ve tried to respond to that in our manifesto in a whole variety of areas, and that would be a priority for me in any discussion about a government after the election.
OSCAR: This is my first general election. Young people expect long-term strategic investment in the future of the country. Why should we trust Fine Gael to do this when their priorities are clearly short-term?
SH: Yeah, so we are going to use the Apple money for four areas. We’re going to use it for housing, water, energy and transport. And all of it will be used [on capital spending].
My party’s fully committed to Help to Buy, but that’s not the bit coming from the Apple funding. My party does want to extend Help to Buy for five years. We want to increase the amount you can claim back from that to €40,000 and we also want to keep the First Home Scheme, which is the scheme where the State can take an equity share in your house to bridge the gap between what you can afford and the cost of the house and we want to make that available to people buying second-hand homes.
So over 50,000 people have been able to buy their first home as a result of this. Well, you want to get to a point where you don’t need these interventions, of course you do. But I can’t truthfully look anyone of Oscar’s generation in the eye and say we’re there. I can’t, because we’ve got to get up to 55, 60,000 homes out to the next government and keep that going for quite a number of years.
But Oscar did make a point that I really do agree with, and he doesn’t think my party is in this space, but I want to assure him we are, because he said people want long-term plans and solutions. I mean, what I’ve tried to do, and I’m only taoiseach seven months, but what I’ve been trying to do and what my manifesto was trying to do is very much show people how we can make real structural change in how we deliver services for people.
So keep the Land Development Agency. We now have an agency that can use public land to start building homes. I’ve been in the homes in Shanganagh, for example, it’s working with local authorities and the likes.
Change the childcare approach, not just cap the fees at €200 per month per child, which we will do, but also actually publicly intervening, publicly funded and publicly run childcare facilities – to open a hundred of them across the country. Provide every child with early-childhood education, make it a legal right and extend the time.
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Make third-level education free because I actually think the decision that Donogh O’Malley made to make second-level education free was so transformational, we now need to increase that too.
So every single day we’re taking decisions on the long-term future, and we’re actually very proudly setting aside billions each year into a fund called the Future Ireland Fund, so that if any shocks come to our economy… we’ve set aside money so Oscar’s generation never has to live through the austerity that my generation did in the past.
BRIAN: So my question is simple. Why should I vote for you as your party has broken every promise which it has made in relation to personal income tax over the last few elections?
SH: And of course it hasn’t, but I appreciate Brian’s question. My party is one of the few parties [in what] used to be a very lonely place in Dáil Éireann, not necessarily in this government, but in previous governments, [it] was a lonely place in Dáil Éireann arguing for changes in relation to the taxation system.
And I would make and agree with the point that Brian makes from a competitiveness point of view and making sure that work always pays and rewarding work. It has been far too low a level of income that you have to earn before you have to pay the higher rate of tax. But I would say to Brian respectfully, I don’t have the figures in front of me, but just over €35,000 was the point at which you paid the higher rate of tax when this government came to office in 2020.
In the last budget, we’ve increased it to €44,000. We’ve been increasing it by about €2,000 a year for the last couple of years. And my party is committing to €54,000. So, in the lifetime of the next government, you will not pay the higher rate of tax until you earn €54,000.
HUGH LINEHAN: Isn’t it true, though, that Fine Gael in past elections has, for example, promised to abolish USC [universal social charge]?
SH: That is true. That was the proposal. It’s a statement, a statement of fact, we didn’t win that election, as was quite clear, we lost a lot of seats. That’s not the party’s position now, because we now rely on that money for lots of public services, but the party’s position is to lower the burden on people in terms of the USC.
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And in our manifesto, we’ve outlined, we believe we can do about €1.4 billion each year in tax measures over the next five years. And that will be made up of both the changes to the income thresholds along the lines that Brian has suggested, getting that up to €54,000. But also changing the entry points to the various USC bans, and I genuinely believe, if Brian looks at the various tax proposals, that my party is most speaking to that view… that there is a need to make sure that work pays and that there is that fairness in relations.
HUGH: Which are the red-line items and which aren’t?
SH: Yeah, it’s a really valid question. Just answer the first bit by saying this, like the people are sovereign. And the more support that people give to a political party, the more of its agenda it can progress. I met farmers recently and they said: ‘Why do you have a three-party coalition?’
Well, the answer is because we didn’t have enough seats to have a two-party coalition. So, I mean, the reality is: if people go out and vote the way they wish to vote, if they wish to see the Fine Gael mandate enhanced in the next Dáil, they do need to vote for it. And if they don’t, they need to vote a different way.
So, I mean, that’s just a point I’d make. We deal with the outcome of what the people decide and not the other way around. In terms of the economic challenges, I’m glad you brought this up because, I mean, we’re having an interesting election campaign in one way, that almost all of the discussion is around the spending of extra money and my own party included has published plans to show how we would spend extra money.
Now, we’re promising to spend less than many other parties in terms of additionality and we’re keeping within the Department of Finance 5 per cent spending rule on current spending. But I do need to be very honest with people… the global economic environment in which we’re living is obviously volatile at the moment. I’ve got to be truthful about that.
I’ve heard people say things in the last few days that I’ve had to grit my teeth a little bit because I think it’s, I think it’s not quite accurate. I’ve heard people say: well we’ve had a President Trump before and you know, our corporation tax rose during that time and everything was grand sort of thing.
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True on one level but a bit flippant on another level because Trump 2024 is I think a very different situation to the first Trump presidency. Firstly, the world is different. The world is very different. The political composition, even of Europe, is different. Secondly, the mandate President Trump has received, and he has received a mandate, regardless of people’s political views, the mandate he’s received is much stronger.
And thirdly, if it’s not too undiplomatic to say, this is a president now who knows how to use the levers of the US government. He’s no longer new to the political system. And it looks like, based on the cabinet picks that he’s choosing, and it’s his right to choose whoever he wishes to be in his cabinet, that he does seem quite determined to advance that agenda from a trade perspective.
Now, I’m not all doom and gloom about this. I believe we can overcome these challenges. I think the US and the EU needed each other before the presidential election, will need each other after the presidential election. There are lots of bad actors in the world. It makes sense for the US and the EU to work together to trade.
I think trade with the EU is a good thing for people who voted for President Trump. We’ll have to be making these arguments… It looks to me like President Trump is very much assembling a team of people who will adopt a strong approach on tariffs and a protectionist approach on trade.
There are ways around this, as in there are ways of dealing with this, there are ways of mitigating this. One is you set aside money for any economic shock, and that’s what we’ve been doing. And my party Fine Gael is committing to getting those funds up to €50 billion, so providing a buffer for economic shocks.
The second is you’ve got to work at a European level intensively, and that’s what my briefing to Cabinet was about yesterday, making sure that Team Ireland is working at an EU level because this is a European-wide issue in relation to trade and there’s many countries impacted. I suggested, for example, at the last EU Council that there should be an EU-US summit.
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We need to open up lines of engagement here. President Trump is transactional in how he approaches things. So we need to be making the point that there’s actually lots of Irish jobs being created, created in the US. We’re creating jobs for people in the US… Irish companies.
HUGH: But Donald Trump doesn’t like trade deficits. And the United States has a very large trade deficit with Ireland.
SH: That’s correct. And, and indeed with other countries… so I mean we are heading into… all of this brings me back to the fundamental point that we are heading into challenging economic times. That is factually true. And that is why I’ve asked government officials to group on this, to plan on this, to prepare for this.
RONAN: The state of the Irish Army is quite frankly embarrassing. We are essentially outsourcing our defence to the United Kingdom and piggybacking off Nato, which may no longer be feasible now that Donald Trump has been re-elected.
What is Fine Gael’s policy proposal to make sure that Ireland is better equipped to deal with a world with constant rising tensions?
SH: Yeah, it’s a really good question, Ronan, because whilst Ireland is militarily neutral and will remain so, and I believe people in this country support that position, or at least an overwhelming majority do, as do I… we have to also look after our own security and we have to support our own Defence Forces too, because we are not immune to terrorism, we’re not immune to cyberattacks… and we should never fool ourselves into thinking that we are.
So I don’t think Ireland should be afraid of participating in policy discussions around that, at an EU level, that respect our neutrality. And secondly, we have to spend more in this area. We have to support our Defence Forces, we have to support our Air Corps, we have to put in place a lot of what the Commission on the Future of Defence recommended.
HUGH: Do you agree with Ronan’s characterisation of funding of it in the past as embarrassing?
SH: I don’t think national security is an issue that has been taken as seriously as it should be in this country up until a relatively recent period of time. And in my own party’s manifesto, we propose increasing defence spending, getting it up to three billion.
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That is separate to – in any way, shape or form – talking about changing Irish military neutrality. We’re not proposing that, but we do have to make sure we have an ability in an uncertain and often dangerous world to keep our own people safe and indeed to respond to the likes of cyberattacks.
HUGH: But isn’t the background to this as well that it’s not just a question of Donald Trump. The United States is slowly disengaging from the postwar North Atlantic alliance which is taking place. It may not depart entirely, but Europe needs to look after itself a lot more than it has done for the last 80 years or so.
The framework for that is likely to be an EU framework, isn’t it? So our definition of what neutrality means is almost certain to change.
SH: I think we understand very much what our definition of neutrality means. And I think, and I think Ukraine is an interesting example. So Ireland is militarily neutral. We haven’t participated in sending anything that can be used for lethal force to Ukraine. But we have made a very significant contribution. And whether that’s assisting, assisting in terms of landmines, whether it’s assisting in terms of, you know, energy supply, whether it’s assisting on a humanitarian level with non-lethal equipment.
So we have shown an ability to assist that shows we’re not neutral on a conflict, but we are militarily neutral. And that’s the way I see those conversations progressing.
JOE: Looking at the other party leaders, can you identify in them attributes, positive attributes, which they possess, which you do not possess yourself, and you might like to have.
SH: Wow, I thought I was ready for the first half, but the second half, as in ones I don’t have and that they have, I, I haven’t, I haven’t done a kind of psychoanalysis or thought about this too, too, too deeply. But I see, I see good attributes in all of them. And I don’t say that flippantly. I mean, I actually have.
I actually have a high level of respect for my political colleagues and opponents. Politics can be, can be a tough job at times. I genuinely believe pretty much everybody who enters political life is motivated to do good. I fundamentally disagree with how they want to go about it.
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Micheál Martin, someone who’s got a lot of experience, has been, you know, been there a long time. That experience is important and the insights and that kind of corporate knowledge. Mary Lou McDonald and I don’t agree on a lot of policy, but I think she’s, I think she’s shown huge resilience and I think she’s a passionate believer in her own policies and I respect that. I respect her as a political opponent.
And I think people like, people like Holly Cairns and Ivana Bacik, I think have been really good, constructive, in terms of putting forward ideas. And again, there can be the argy bargy in the Dáil. I think, sorry, not to go off on a rant here, but when I go into schools, I was in a school the other day, I always ask kids the same question, young people, the same question, primary school, secondary school.
I always stand up at the top and I say: ‘Does anyone here have an interest in politics? Stick up your hand.’ And very few do, right? Very few. Some do it out of kind of, you know, solidarity with me at the top of the room. Some genuinely do have an interest and put up their hands. But most sit on their hands.
And then I say: ‘Well, do you have an interest in, you know, whether you’ll have to pay fees when you go to college?’ Hands go up. ‘Do you have an interest in the humanitarian despicable catastrophe in Gaza?’ More hands go up. ‘The planet’s on fire. Do you have an interest in solving the climate emergency?’ More hands go up. And I try to say to them: that is politics.
So that’s my long-winded way of saying we have to stop kind of demonising each other in politics and we should never get into that over-polarisation that’s happened in other countries. This is a good country full of decent people. And, you know, it might be shocking that even some of those decent people get elected to the Dáil.