Summer Economic Statement: Are the days of prudence well over?

On Tuesday, the Government published its Summer Economic Statement, which provides a framework for tax and spending in October’s budget. We discovered that the budget will be framed around a massive tax and spending package of €8.3 billion. Strip out Covid and cost of living years, and that would make it one of the most generous in the history of the State.

In turn, this has fuelled speculation of an early general election in November.

On this week’s episode of Inside Business, Eoin Burke-Kennedy and Cliff Taylor join Ciarán Hancock to go through the headline numbers in the statement and how the €8.3 billion breaks down.

In the second half, we hear from Martin Muller, professor of geography and sustainability at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He’s been crunching the numbers on the costs and payback for host cities for big events such as the Olympic Games, and following many years of preparation, billions spent on facilities and new infrastructure and the promise of an economic bounty, is Paris set to benefit from playing host to this year’s games?