News

Oil prices fell today and were on track to snap a three-day winning streak, as concerns over low demand following a surprise US crude inventory build outweighed jitters over global trade disruptions due to tensions in the Middle East. Brent crude futures fell 22 cents, or 0.3%, to $79.48 a barrel early this morning, while…

The Government has announced the largest ever expansion of the employment permits system, in an effort to address the skills gap in a range of key areas amid full employment in the economy. 11 new roles have been added to the list of occupations classed as critical skills, including Meteorologist, Project Engineer, Professional Forester and…

More than a quarter of employees expect they will be responding to work emails over Christmas, according to a new survey. The Human Workplace Index from Workhuman found that 22% of employees say they will not be able to fully switch off from work over their Christmas holidays, while 28% admitted that their large workload…

January was the busiest month for flight bookings this year as consumers sought to escape the winter blues, an annual review of AIB’s Spend Trend has revealed. Wednesday, January 11 was the busiest individual day, the analysis reveals, with spending on flights at 57% above the daily average. The annual spending review shows that overall…

British inflation plunged in November to its lowest rate in over two years, prompting investors to pile further into bets that the Bank of England will cut interest rates next year. The annual rate of increase in the consumer prices index dropped to 3.9% from 4.6% in October, pushed down in part by petrol prices,…

The European Central Bank said today it had raised capital requirements for 20 banks after judging they had not set aside enough cash to cover for loans that had gone unpaid, a key concern for supervisors at a time of high borrowing costs. The move was part of the ECB’s push, set to continue next…

Construction costs here have gone up by almost a quarter in the last four years, an analysis by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland has concluded. In its latest Housing Market Monitor, the BPFI said construction price inflation of 23% between the end of 2019 and the third quarter of this year compares to inflation…

The Central Bank has become the latest economic forecaster to predict that the economy will shrink this year. Its latest Quarterly Bulletin also shows that lower income families have seen their real incomes decline over the past two years due to inflation while higher income groups have seen a faster recovery. Multinational companies exporting pharmaceutical…

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that almost 1.4 million more passengers used Irish airports in the third quarter of this year compared to the same time last year. The CSO said the number of passengers travelling to and from Ireland in the third quarter rose by 2% when compared with the third…

The AA Ireland’s latest monthly fuel price survey has shown another drop in petrol and diesel prices over the last month. Petrol is down from €1.80 a litre in November to €1.72, while diesel has fallen from €1.81 to €1.72. December marked the third month in a row that prices have dropped at the pumps.…