Simon Harris briefs social media influencers on upcoming saving and investment scheme – The Irish Times

Minister for Finance Simon Harris has enlisted the help of social media influencers and online money coaches to help explain his upcoming savings and investment plan to the public.

Personal finance influencers from Instagram and TikTok were invited to the Department of Finance on Monday for an exclusive briefing on the scheme, which the Government is hoping will incentivise the public to move some of the €170 billion held in savings into capital market investments.

Details of the scheme are to be announced in Budget 2027 in October, with the investment accounts expected to open next year.

More than a dozen people, including social media influencers and representatives from financial industry bodies, were invited to a “consumer roundtable” earlier this week.

Ann-Marie Gaynor, who has more than 70,000 followers on her “Irish Budgeting Mammy” Instagram account, and Cian Carolan, a finance expert with more than 40,000 followers, were present.

Kel Galavan, the online money coach known as Mrs Smart Money, and Caroline Mooney, whose Irish Budgeting Instagram account has more than 265,000 followers, were also in attendance.

The department wrote to the influencers by email on June 12th and invited them to the “investment account consumer roundtable”. The event was attended by Harris and Minister of State Robert Troy.

According to content posted by the influencers afterwards, the proposed scheme will use funds that already exist, like Exchange-Traded Funds – ready-made baskets of investments that include assets such as shares and bonds.

Galavan told her followers there will be no deemed disposal tax, Capital Gains Tax or exit tax on the investments.

“Instead, it looks like it will be a flat annual fee, potentially like the Swedish model,” she said. Galavan also said there will be an annual cap on contributions and that the scheme was “shaping up to be a seriously positive move”.

Gaynor told her followers she had attended the event not in her capacity as a qualified financial adviser or as someone with a finance degree, but as “Irish Budgeting Mammy”.

“And honestly, for the first time in a long time, I feel like the Government was actually listening to what ordinary people are saying about money.”

The participants also discussed former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy’s Special Savings Incentive Account scheme, with Mooney saying the new initiative “will be different, most likely”.

The department said the gathering brought together “organisations and individuals with strong connections to end-consumers”. It described it as “important engagement” with representatives of brokers, financial planners, tax practitioners and “individuals who have built online communities” based around financial planning, budgeting and tax practice.