Archive for June 2021

The number of people receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment has fallen to just over 267,000 – a decrease of almost 18,000 over the last seven days. The drop in claims reflects the continued reopening of the economy, with 24,000 people closing their PUP accounts last week to return to work. Including this week’s payments of…

The European Union has excluded some of the biggest investment banks with past involvement in breaches of antitrust rules from syndicated debt sales backing its up to €800 billion Covid-19 recovery fund, the EU executive said. “The Commission will be undertaking a careful assessment of whether the primary dealers found guilty of breaching anti-trust rules…

A dilemma is a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives. It is precisely what is facing a vast cohort of tenants and would be home-owners here all over Ireland. House prices and rents have both already started to rise and as the nation recovers from lockdown…

Paolo Gentiloni, EU Commissioner for Economy, has said the EU’s commitment to the Good Friday Agreement is “unwavering”. Commissioner Gentiloni made his remarks in an online address to the Institute of International and European Affairs this afternoon. He said this was why the Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed “by both sides…both with their eyes wide…

Over half of employees would consider leaving their job post pandemic if they are not given some form of flexibility in where and when they work, according to a survey carried out by EY. The ‘2021 Work Reimagined Employee Survey’ is an international study conducted among more than 16,000 employees across 16 countries and multiple…

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the volume of cars on Irish roads has been rising slowly since the start of the year after the move to Level 5 restrictions in December. Volumes have been rising more rapidly since travel restrictions lifted in May, the CSO said. The easing of travel restrictions…

Activity in the construction sector expanded for the first time this year in May, according to Ulster Bank’s latest Purchasing Managers’ Index. The index, which is designed to track changes in overall construction activity on a scale of 1 to 100, passed the 50 no-change mark for the first time since the imposition of restrictions…

Around a third of people surveyed by a company that provides technical expertise to the credit unions sector said they had closed their credit union accounts because of a lack of online services. The research was carried out on behalf Wellington IT – described as the tech partner for the credit union sector. It found…

Appearing before an Oireachtas Committee at the end of 2016, the then chief executive of Bank of Ireland more or less admitted that the bank was deliberately keeping its variable mortgage interest rate elevated. Richie Boucher was making a big push at the time to get people to opt for one of the bank’s fixed…

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has said that Ireland will be vigourously making the case for tax competition and for maintaining a corporate tax rate of 12.5%. In negotiations on the issue, Minister Donohoe said he is confident that Ireland will continue to be a really attractive place to do business. Yesterday, Mr Donohoe said that…