News

Greta Thunberg famously asked “how dare you?” in a speech in 2019. The emotional question was followed by “we are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth”. In the movement towards climate action, is economic growth an opposing force? I asked…

Revenue is to extend the deadline for property owners to file their Local Property Tax returns until 5pm on Wednesday. The decision comes as large numbers of people continue to seek further clarity about the self-assessment valuation process for their property tax ahead of the original deadline of this Sunday. Revenue said so far more…

The Government has approved a 2% cap on rent increases in rent pressure zones (RPZs). A RPZ is a designated area where rents cannot be increased by more than general inflation and applies to new and existing tenancies unless an exemption is being applied. The Residential Tenancies Board said RPZs are located in parts of the country where…

Businesses will have to reduce their emissions by around 40% under the Government’s Climate Action Plan, which also warns failure to act means firms risk being left behind. The blueprint says that the biggest share of enterprise emissions come from a small number of large alumina, food processing, beverages and cement manufacturing companies covered under…

The Government Climate Action plan – to be published today – will aim to have almost one million electric vehicles in operation in Ireland by 2030. The plan going to Cabinet this morning seeks to chart a course for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 51% by the end of the decade. It will…

Central Bank Governor Gabriel Makhlouf has written to the chairs and CEOs of regulated financial companies to remind them of their obligations around climate change. The Central Bank also said that it has endorsed the “Glasgow Declaration” made at COP26 today by the Network for Greening the Financial System, which is made up of central…

Unemployment fell to 7.9% last month, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office, and it includes those in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. This compares to the Covid-adjusted rate of 8.9% in September and 20.3% in October 2020. The traditional, seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment, stood at 135,200 people or 5.2%…

Growth in the services sector eased slightly in October from the previous month but remained near historic highs as the Covid-19 recovery pushed growth in prices and work backlogs to their highest levels in 21 years. The AIB IHS Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) inched down to 63.4 from 63.7 last month and from a…

The public finances continued to recover last month, according to the latest Exchequer figures from the Department of Finance. There was an Exchequer deficit of €7.438 billion recorded at the end of October, an improvement of just over €4 billion on the deficit recorded over the same period last year. Tax revenue continues to come…

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that households saved over €31 billion in 2020, bringing their financial net worth to an all-time high of €312.8 billion. The CSO said this is almost three times the level of saving before the Covid-19 pandemic and is the result of higher household incomes and lower consumer…