News

PROPERTY prices nationwide rose again last month as a shortage of homes to buy continues to push up values. Dublin led the charge upwards, but there was a fall in prices outside the capital city. Prices across the State were up 0.3pc in the month of April, and have now risen by 7.1pc in the […]

Ulster Bank is to offer more than 900 distressed home loans to so called vulture funds, as part of a sale aimed at clearing the decks of the bank’s boom era problem assets. The sale of €2.5bn of distressed business loans (65pc), buy-to-let mortgages and owner occupier mortgages is aimed at substantially clearing out all […]

Royal Dutch Shell will increase the number of job cuts in 2015 and 2016 by around 20pc to at least 12,500 as a result of low oil prices and the integration of BG Group, it said on Wednesday. The Anglo-Dutch company will reduce the size of its UK and Ireland oil and gas production, or […]

Over recent weeks I have traversed the UK debating whether it should leave the EU. I have been struck by the way that most speakers for readily acknowledge that the euro is a disaster yet still argue that the UK should stay in the EU. Apparently, they regard these two as unrelated, or at least […]

Four out of five consumers who have health insurance are on the wrong plan, according to research by one of the country’s leading health insurance experts. This means thousands of families are overpaying for health cover. And employers who pay some or all of the health insurance costs of staff are not getting the best […]

Oil sector workers of French CGT and FO unions voted on Monday to begin a strike at Exxon Mobil’s 240,000 barrels-per-day Port Jerome refinery in northern France, the unions said in a joint statement. Workers at a port terminal in Le Havre, northern France, which handles large volumes of imported petroleum products, also voted overwhelmingly […]

Half of the European Union’s member states on Monday called for the removal of barriers to the free flow of data both within and outside the 28-nation bloc to ensure the continent can benefit from new data-driven technologies. In a letter to the European Commission and the Netherlands – which holds the rotating EU presidency […]

Axa, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, will stop investing in the tobacco industry, it has announced. The international firm which has more than 10 million customers in the UK has also pledged to sell investments worth more than €1.7bn. Incoming chief executive Thomas Buberl told the BBC it “makes no sense” […]

Ireland is in the front line of countries that will be worst hit if the UK votes for a so-called Brexit. Recovery in the export sector could take years. That’s according to Jean Michel Six, S&P Global Rating’s chief economist for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. However, a vote for the so-called remain […]

Tech recruitment company Harvey Nash has announced the creation of 100 new jobs in Ireland over the next two years. The IT specialist firm said 40 of the new roles would be directly involved with Harvey Nash Ireland in the areas of recruitment and support services. The move was spurred by a growth in demand […]