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The National Treasury Management Agency today held an auction of Irish Treasury Bills and sold the target amount of €750m.     The NTMA said that total bids received amounted to €3.71 billion which was nearly five times the amount on offer.  The Treasury Bills, which have a maturity of five months, were sold at…

The Central Statistics Office’s latest Labour Force Survey shows that a total of 2,353,500 people were employed in the first quarter of 2020. This gives an associated employment rate of 69.8% for those aged between 15 and 64 years, the CSO added. But when the effects of the coronavirus are taken into account, the Covid-19 Adjusted…

The European Commission is recommending that Ireland takes all necessary measures to effectively address the Covid-19 pandemic, sustain the economy and support the recovery that follows. It also says the tax base here should be broadened over this year and next. “The challenges facing Ireland in regard to poverty and employment quality and support, including…

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has said that there is a possibility that Ireland will run a deficit of €30 billion this year. “We expect public debt to increase significantly this year,” the Minister said. Speaking in the Dáil, Paschal Donohoe said the deficit can be financed at low interest rates at the moment but he said sentiment…

The Labour Court is to convene virtual case hearings for the first time from 2 June in order to comply with public health guidelines on the coronavirus. The majority of currently scheduled hearings involve industrial relations matters and will be heard in private. However, in a statement, the Labour Court says it is satisfied that…

The Central Statistics Office has found that a majority of companies have continued to trade through the Covid-19 pandemic.   In the second of the CSO’s new Covid-19 business surveys, conducted in the week beginning May 3, 76% of companies which responded said they were continuing to trade.  But 23.9% indicated they had ceased trading…

The number of people receiving the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment has fallen slightly by 5,000 to 584,600 over the last week, new figures show.  Of those, 7,000 are receiving the €350 weekly payment for the first time.   A further 214,700 people were receiving Jobseekers’ Benefit of €203 a week at the end of April. …

European passenger car sales slumped in April as the first full month with restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic across the continent dragged sales to a record drop, data showed today.  In April, new car registrations dropped by 78.3% to 292,182 vehicles in the European Union, Britain and the European Free Trade Association countries. This…

France and Germany have agreed to propose creating a €500 billion Recovery Fund that would offer grants to European member states and regions hit hardest by the coronavirus crisis. In what French President Emmanuel Macron said was a “major step forward”, the two countries said they were also proposing to allow the European Commission to…

The coronavirus-hit euro zone economy probably will not return to its pre-pandemic levels until next year at the earliest, the European Central Bank’s chief economist said today. But Philip Lane said that the ECB was prepared to tweak its tools if needed.   “From today’s perspective, it looks in any case unlikely that economic activity…