Author: splash

The European Commission has today revised down its expectations for the performance of the Irish economy in its Winter 2024 Economic Forecast, which was published today. The Commission said that Ireland’s GDP growth outlook for this year has been adjusted “substantially” lower to 1.2% from an estimate of 3% in its Autumn Forecast In 2025, […]

The annual rate of inflation fell to 4.1% in the 12 months to January from 4.6% in December, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show today. This marks the third consecutive month where the inflation rate was lower than 5%. The CSO figures also show that inflation – as measured by the Harmonised Index […]

Ireland’s media regulator Coimisiún na Meán has said it is ready to assume new EU online safety powers from tomorrow. It has been tasked with enforcing the Digital Services Act (DSA) in Ireland. All EU member states are required to have designated a ‘Digitial Services Coordinator’ by 17 February to implement the DSA in their […]

Euro zone economic data indicates that inflation is heading back towards target as earlier predicted but the European Central Bank still needs more information before it can be sure, ECB President Christine Lagarde said today. The ECB has kept interest rates unchanged at a record high since September and has been pushing back on rampant […]

Euro zone economic growth was flat in the last three months of the 2023 against the previous quarter and up 0.1% against the same time in 2022, Eurostat said today, confirming its earlier preliminary estimate. After euro zone output contracted 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter, the result for the last three months is a […]

Once forecast to become the world’s biggest economy, Japan slipped below Germany last year to fourth place, official data showed today, although India is projected to leapfrog both later this decade. Despite growing 1.9%, Japan’s nominal 2023 gross domestic product in dollar terms was $4.2 trillion, government data showed, compared with $4.5 trillion for Germany, […]

People have been urged to beware of romance scams and criminals who are seeking to take advantage of the increased popularity of dating apps this St Valentine’s Day. More than €7 million has been stolen from the victims of romance fraud in the past five years, according to gardaí. The majority of the 245 victims […]

US consumer prices increased more than expected in January amid rises in the costs of housing and healthcare, but the pick-up in inflation likely does not change expectations that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates in the first half of this year. The US consumer price index increased 0.3% last month after gaining […]

The Government has given formal approval to the public sector pay deal agreed last month. Following negotiations at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), unions, staff associations and government representatives reached agreement on a package that provides for increases of 10.25% over a two and a half year period. The agreement will cost around €3.6 billion […]

Labour and raw material costs continue to drive pricing higher in the construction sector, new research has found. The Construction Industry Federation Construction Outlook Survey for the first quarter of the year found two thirds of respondents saw labour costs rise year on year and 60% saw raw materials increase. More than half of the […]