Archive for March 2021

The Cabinet will this morning consider a proposal from Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien to extend protections for tenants whose incomes have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill is due to lapse on 12 April, but it is set to be renewed for three months. The legislation protects tenants from eviction…

Consumer spending fell again in February as the impact of the full coronavirus lockdown continued to bite, new figures from digital banking app Revolut show.  Revolut said that overall spending by its Irish customers in February this year was 19% lower than in February 2020. Consumer spending was also 2% down on January 2021, it…

The number of women holding senior leadership roles in Irish businesses improved in the past year, growing from 31% in 2020 to 33% in 2021, according to research included in the Women in Business 2021 Report published by Grant Thornton. Globally this figure sits at 30%, an important milestone for businesses internationally, but not the…

February saw another steep contraction in construction activity here due to the coronavirus lockdown restrictions. Ulster Bank’s Construction Purchasing Managers’ index remained well below the 50 no-change mark in February, despite rising to 27 from 21.2 in January. A reading above 50 signal an increase in activity on the previous month and readings below 50…

The Minister for Finance has warned that it is dangerous for a small economy that cannot print its own currency to think that “deficits don’t matter” when evaluating policy options in the future. Addressing an Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) event, Paschal Donohoe said, in order to keeping the interest bill on the national…

The Taoiseach has said that as the Covid-19 pandemic is brought under control there will be a need to move away from the extensive and wide-ranging emergency supports put in place by the Government to help businesses and workers.  However, Micheál Martin said the changes would be phased, in line with the public health advice,…

The European Parliament has postponed a decision on ratifying the EU-UK free trade agreement in protest at the UK’s unilateral move on how the Northern Ireland Protocol should be implemented. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was concluded by the EU and UK on 24 December, but it has only been applied provisionally because of…

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the unemployment rate, including those receiving temporary Covid-19 jobless benefit, fell slightly to 24.8% in February from 25.1% in January.  The CSO said the Covid-19 crisis continued to have a significant impact on the labour market here last month. But it added that the “true” jobless…

The chief executive of Permanent TSB has described its discussions with Ulster Bank parent NatWest on the possible purchase of parts of the business as positive. Speaking on Morning Ireland, Eamonn Crowley confirmed the talks included a possible deal on mortgages, as well as the micro-SME aspects of the business. Asked about branches forming part of…

The Minister for Foreign Affairs said the EU is negotiating with a partner it simply cannot trust following yesterday’s move by the British government to unilaterally change how the Northern Ireland Protocol is implemented.  Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Simon Coveney said the difficulty is that the British government has changed its approach.  He said said progress was…