A teacher on Budget 2024: ‘I am the squeezed middle. It helps, but not that much ’

Aideen Clarke, an economics and business teacher, did a quick tot-up of how the Budget 2024 measures will affect her after watching it live with one of her classes.

“As an individual, I really am the squeezed middle,” says Clarke (45), who is single and rents a house in Portlaoise, an hour’s drive from her school in south Dublin. She is on a salary of about €48,000.

“The changes are positive on paper, but material benefit for me is about €10-€20 extra per week ... So, I’m pretty much where I was. It helps, but not that much.”

The increase in rental tax credit from €500 to €750 is a step in the right direction for hard-pressed renters, she says, while tax changes will bring some modest improvements.

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But she feels some benefits that are being given with one hand are being taken away with the other.

A planned increase in fuel excise charges of 8 cent per litre of petrol and 6 cent for diesel at the end of this month has been pushed back to two equal instalments in April and August next year. This adds between €3.60-€4.80 to a typical fill of fuel.

Meanwhile, the cost of a fill of petrol or diesel will climb from Wednesday of this week on foot of latest carbon tax increases. It will add about €1.28-€1.48 to a fill of fuel.

Either way, it means the cost of diesel for her 1.6 litre Ford Focus — which has climbed to about €120 per week recently as oil prices rise — will likely go higher still.

“It all adds up and eats into whatever available income I have,” she says.

That said, as an economics teacher, she feels it would be irresponsible for the Government to slash taxes or splash too much cash around in a giveaway budget.

“It’s a populist budget,” she says. “You’d know there’s an election next year. But the childcare [cost] cuts are badly needed, as is the rise in the minimum wage and other tax measures. It probably erred on the right side of generous.”