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Oil prices jumped over $1 a barrel today, extending gains as investors eyed possible moves by OPEC+ producers to cut output and support prices at a meeting later today. Brent crude futures rose $1.88, or 2%, to $94.90 a barrel in early trade after gaining 0.7% on Friday. US West Texas Intermediate crude was at…

The euro sunk below $0.99 this morningy, a 20-year-low, following the announcement last week that Russia would cut off gas deliveries to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline. The euro fell 0.7% to 0.9884 in early trade – its lowest since December 2002. The European currency has continued to weaken against the dollar since the…

The Richter Scale measures the intensity of earthquakes. It ranges from the unnoticeable to the highly destructive. So, when Taoiseach Micheál Martin said energy prices are “off the Richter scale”, the chosen figure of speech was more than apt. In the year to July, electricity was up 40%, gas up 56%, and home heating oil…

A worker forced to work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic has failed in his bid to have part of his accommodation rental bill recognised as an expense. In January of last year, the worker filed an Income Tax return and sought to have €587 of the rental cost of his accommodation treated as an…

Energy provider PrepayPower has said that it will increase it gas and electricity prices from 1 October. Electricity prices are to rise by 19%, while gas prices will increase by 29%. The increases will add an additional €339 to the average electricity bill and €428 to the average gas bill. The company, which has 170,000…

Online and mobile banking hit record highs in the second quarter of the year growing to 36 million payments, the highest level since the current data series began in 2016. The figures are contained in the latest Payments Monitor from Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI). It is the first time that digital banking payments…

Electric Ireland has announced further increases to its residential electricity and gas bills from 1 October after increasing them in August. The company said its electricity bills will increase by 26.7% and residential gas bills by 37.5% from next month. Electric Ireland said the price hikes were due to the unprecedented increases in international energy…

The European Commission has approved Ireland’s plan for the implementation of the new Common Agriculture Policy that comes into affect in 2023. The plan had to be resubmitted to the Commission earlier this month after thef irst version was rejected last March. Among the reasons cited by the Commission at the time was the need…

The pace of increase in input and output costs for manufacturers here eased to the lowest level in months in August, offering some slight relief to firms who could only eke out modest growth overall. The AIB S&P Global manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 51.1 in August from 51.8 in July, the lowest…

The competition watchdog has said it is concerned by the impending increase in the concentration levels of the retail banking sector in Ireland as a result of the exits of KBC Bank Ireland and Ulster Bank. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) said that while non-bank lenders have brought some new products to the…