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Cliff TaylorThe Irish Times |
Normally budget kites start to flutter in the summer breeze. But over the past couple of years the kites have been flying earlier and earlier. In May...
It looks like the European Central Bank is going to cut interest rates at its meeting in early June. This will be good news for mortgage holders,...
The dirty war over the cost of Irish unification has kicked off, after rumbling under the academic surface now for a few years. An estimate this week...
As Simon Harris heads for the Taoiseach’s office, all the talk is of his ability to communicate and relate to younger voters. And of how he can...
Brexit has cost Britain. Big time. But if Donald Trump gets into the White House, he is promising to introduce policies that will have a similar...
Amid the turmoil of the last few years, the multinational sector has been a huge support, motoring through the Covid shutdowns and — with one or two...
Talk to any estate agent and you get the same story. Even in a relentlessly chirpy profession, all the talk is of the shortage of second-hand...
Like Dante’s Inferno, Irish controversies have their circles — the familiar patterns as the protagonists get punished for different levels of...
The most notable thing about the news on the national children’s hospital this week was not that it was going to cost another €500 million. That...
Attracting big investors to Ireland is typically framed by a discussion on skills, tax and access to the European Union marketplace. But more prosaic...
Stormont is back. But the deal announced this week between the British Government and the DUP shows that Northern Ireland remains in flux, both...
The property market has split. The average annual increase in prices of 2.9 per cent in the Central Statistics Office data this week does not tell the...
Ireland’s small businesses and those in domestic industry have complained for years that they are the poor relation of the multinational sector in...
The headlines have not fallen in the Government’s favour as it seeks to negotiate a pay deal with public servants. Since the start of January, there...
Sinn Féin is right to want house prices to fall. They are too high in Ireland in relation to incomes, pushed up in part by demand from the more...
On December 14th, ECB president Christine Lagarde said after the European Central Bank’s governing council meeting that the bank should...
A culture war is defined by Collins Dictionary as “a conflict between two groups within a society, each of which seeks to establish the pre-eminence...
The Government has gone in deep on the housing market – a key issue for the next general election campaign – with large supports for increasing...
This week’s corporation tax figures have set the pitch for the economic debate in advance of the next general election. Had the figures been poor,...
Whether a shortage of gardaí on the streets during the recent riots was a contributor to the chaos that emerged is still contested territory. Senior...
On Thursday morning, the latest data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that the Irish jobs market continued to surge ahead over the past...
The standard view in Government has been that, economically, the Coalition should hang on for as long as possible before calling the next general...
The 43-year story of Apple in Ireland tells a lot about the State’s long relationship with American multinationals. Ireland’s economic model has...
As it prepares for its hoped-for leadership of government after the next general election, Sinn Féin has gradually but steadily moved many of its...
The Government has gone in deep into the housing market. And it is having an impact. A host of data published this week tells the story. First-time...
The budgetary mess in the health service has been bubbling away for years. It follows a pattern as predictable as the changing of the seasons. Dark...
When you’ve got €14 billion to play with, you can tick a lot of boxes. The budget spread the cash widely across society – an assessment by the...
It felt like the week when everything started to go wrong. Corporate tax receipts wobbled — again. The ESRI is forecasting an economic slowdown. The...
Is it a soft spot or a slowdown? As the Government prepares to deliver the budget, the signs are there that consumers are starting to reduce their...
This will be the Coalition’s most politically difficult budget. The Covid-19 budgets were the most dramatic and risky – vast sums were being...
Be careful what you believe. A month of budget spin lies ahead. And this year it will be worse than ever as the political system tries to come to...