Budget 2023 to be announced
The Government's highly-anticipated €10 billion budget will be announced on Tuesday afternoon.
The budget package is “comprehensive” and “sustainable” and will help the country get through the unprecedented energy crisis, the Taoiseach has said.
A widening of the highest tax band is expected so that the top rate of 40 per cent, which currently applies to those earning over €36,800, will kick in at a higher wage – closer to €40,000.
Carers and people with disabilities are due to get one-off payments of €500, while renters are reportedly in line for a €500 tax credit.
A double payment of social welfare and child benefit is expected, as is a reported €12 increase in the core social welfare payments – the latter of which has already been labelled as “a serious disappointment” by stakeholder groups.
Every household in the country will receive a boost of €600 in electricity credits, it is expected.
And businesses are set to receive payments of up to €10,000 per month for electricity bills.
Assassinated Japanese ex-leader Shinzo Abe funeral to take place
A tense Japan is holding a rare and controversial state funeral for assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe, its longest-serving modern leader and one of the most divisive.
Tokyo was under maximum security, with angry protests opposing the funeral planned around the capital and nation. Hours before the ceremony began, dozens of people carrying bouquets of flowers queued at public flower-laying stands at nearby Kudanzaka Park.
Putin ally raises spectre of nuclear strikes
One of president Vladimir Putin's allies on Tuesday explicitly raised the spectre of a nuclear strike on Ukraine, saying that the US-led military alliance would still stay out of the conflict for fear of a nuclear apocalypse.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said Russia had the right to defend itself with nuclear weapons if it is pushed beyond its limits and that this is "certainly not a bluff".
Hurricane Ian makes landfall in Cuba
A strengthening Hurricane Ian is lashing Cuba’s western tip, where authorities have evacuated 50,000 people, after it became a major Category 3 storm on a path that could see it hit Florida’s west coast at Category 4.
The storm made landfall early on Tuesday in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province, where officials set up 55 shelters, rushed in emergency personnel and took steps to protect crops in Cuba’s main tobacco-growing region.
