Watch: Cork pupils’ views on Budget 2024

WITH Budget 2024 due to be announced tomorrow, it’s a major topic of conversation around the country — even on the school playground.

Given the budget is just around the corner, we visited a ‘school around the corner’ to get the perspective of primary school pupils in Cork.

The students of Togher Girls and Togher Boys National Schools shared their spending suggestions and told us what they see as the big issues facing Ireland today.

Fourth Class’s Amira described what she thinks the budget is: “The budget is how you spend money and how you make sure you don’t spend too much money. When the Government have a budget it is when they put their money into different things like health, agriculture, and housing.

“The Government make money from taxes and they give it out to the hospitals and schools,” Tom from Togher Boys NS explained.

The Togher pupils had lots of ideas on how the Government should allocate funding and hoped that Tánaiste Micheál Martin would pick up a copy of The Echo to hear their views.

“If I had that money, I would spend money on health. About a billion for health. I would also spend the money on agriculture. It’s very important that people get to eat,” said Amira, age nine.

Her classmate Emily had plans to help the poor and build more amenities for her and her friends: “I would spend it on more schools and hospitals. I would help the homeless and build more playgrounds for children.”

“I would spend it on the big patch of grass on my estate, and I would build a park there if I had any money to spare,” said fifth class student Luna.

Ella, aged 11, recognised the issue of homelessness in Ireland, saying: “If we had all that money, we could build houses for the homeless people and we could take care of people that don’t have hospital rooms.”

Despite one student admitting that she would spend the money on a Portugal sun holiday, helping people who were less well-off and the homeless was a common theme running through all of the students’ answers.

“I think it would be important to spend the money on homelessness because there have been lots of people coming over from the Ukraine and they have nowhere to stay,” Ally Rose from Togher Girls NS said.

Agreeing with her classmate, Nasra said: “There are lots of people on the sides of the road also and they have nowhere to stay because most of the houses are really expensive.”

Nasra and Ally Rose also stressed the importance of allocating money to the climate in Budget 2024, calling on the Government for better public transport like buses and cycle lanes. Both said their parents drive them to school and agreed it would be better if there were more buses so that less parents would be using their cars for the school run.

Transport was also highlighted by the sixth-class students in Togher Boys, with 11-year-olds Tom and Adam expressing the need for metros, underground rail and more electric cars to be introduced in Ireland.

“I think they should lower down petrol and diesel because it’s hard for people. It’s very expensive,” Lily, 11, also said.

Julia, 11 advised the Government to stop scrimping when it comes to the roads: “They should spend it on the roads. They have to fix some potholes with actual proper cement.”

Tomorrow’s Budget is set to include a package of €6.5bn, however there were some unusual guesses from the kids when asked how much they think the Government will spend, ranging from “€1,000”, “€300”, “at least €1m” and “gazillions”.

Many of the kids had said that they had heard of the budget before from their family, as well as on the news, the radio and online.

“I have heard about it on the news in the mornings. My mam listens to the news so then I have to as well,” said Ally Rose, 10.

Nine-year olds Abbie, Chloe and Mollie said that they think last year’s electricity credit package was a good idea and think that their parents would be very happy if something similar was announced on Budget day.