Tánaiste Simon Harris launches National Financial Literacy Strategy Annual Review and Action Plan for 2026–2027
- Foilsithe:
- An t-eolas is déanaí:
The Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Simon Harris TD, today launched the National Financial Literacy Strategy Annual Review and Action Plan 2026–2027, highlighting significant progress in helping people build the confidence, knowledge and skills needed to make informed financial decisions.
The Strategy aims to improve financial wellbeing and resilience by ensuring people are better equipped to navigate financial challenges, seize opportunities and plan for their own and their families’ future.
The new Action Plan contains more than 100 actions designed to further enhance financial confidence and resilience across society.
These actions focus on key areas including saving, pensions, fraud awareness and investing, while also supporting consumers in understanding new opportunities such as the Government’s planned Investment Account, will be announced as part of the upcoming Budget.
Annual Review
The Annual Review highlights strong progress during the first year of the Strategy.
Key achievements include:
- The continued embedding of financial literacy through the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum;
- More than 170,000 student engagements with financial literacy programmes and more nearly 2,000 individual sessions of financial literacy programmes delivered in schools
- Approximately two million people reached through financial education initiatives across television, radio and print media.
Action Plan
The Action Plan for 2026–2027 builds on this momentum through a range of measures aimed at supporting people at every stage of life.
These include:
- €200,000 in funding for financial literacy projects through the CCPC’s Collaboration and Innovation Fund;
- Updated internationally comparable data on financial literacy levels in Ireland;
- A new monitoring and evaluation toolkit;
- Communications to support public understanding of pension auto-enrolment and;
- Awareness of scams and fraud.
Investment Account
A particular focus of the Action Plan is ensuring consumers have the knowledge and confidence to engage with savings and investment opportunities.
As part of this work, the Department of Finance is developing a roadmap to support the introduction of the Government’s planned Investment Account in the upcoming Budget.
Speaking at the Rotunda Hospital today, the Tánaiste said:
“Every day, people are required to make increasingly complex financial decisions - from budgeting and saving, to preparing for retirement, protecting themselves from fraud and scams, and increasingly, understanding how to invest.
“Financial literacy is much more than just understanding money. It is about confidence. It is about empowerment. It is about giving people the tools to make informed decisions and take control of their financial future.
“I am proud of the progress highlighted in this Annual Review. Over the past year, we have seen financial literacy become more deeply embedded in our schools, more people engaging with financial education programmes and millions of people reached through awareness initiatives across the country.
“That progress matters because behind every statistic is a person who feels more confident managing their finances, planning for the future and making decisions that are right for themselves and their family.
“But our ambition must be greater still. The Action Plan we are launching today contains more than 100 actions designed to strengthen financial confidence and resilience, support people at every stage of life and ensure that financial opportunity is open to everyone.”
The Tánaiste continued:
“Ireland has a strong culture of saving, and people work hard to provide security for themselves and their families.
“As we look to introduce the Investment Account, it is important that people have access to clear information, and can have the confidence they need to make decisions that are right for them.
“The Investment Account is about creating opportunity. Financial literacy is about ensuring people have the confidence to seize that opportunity.”
The National Financial Literacy Strategy is being implemented by the Department of Finance in close partnership with the Central Bank of Ireland and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, with support from stakeholders across Government, education, financial services and civil society.