The News

Stamp duty on block-buying homes to be reviewed

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has said that the 10% stamp duty rate, which is applicable to international investors who buy more than ten residential properties, will be reviewed. He was replying in the Dáil to Sinn Féin’s Spokesperson on Finance Pearse Doherty, who said that such investors are block-buying new homes at a rate […]

Read More

Number of new homes under construction hits record high

Building work began on 32,801 new homes last year, the highest number on record, new data shows. The figure for commencement notices lodged in 2023 compares to 26,957 in 2022, an increase of 21.5%. It follows a strong end to the year, where the number of commencement notices filed in December rose 76% compared to […]

Read More

Oil prices rise on strong IEA and OPEC demand estimates

Oil prices rose today as the International Energy Agency (IEA) joined producer group OPEC in forecasting strong growth in global oil demand and as cold winter weather disrupted US crude output while the government reported a big weekly draw in crude inventories. Oil traders also worried about geopolitical risks in the Middle East. Pakistan conducted […]

Read More

Wage growth in Ireland eases to 3.7%

Wage growth in Ireland slowed at the end of 2023 and has dropped to 3.7% year-on-year, according to a new report from jobs site Indeed and the Central Bank of Ireland. The research shows that the wage growth rate in Ireland is below the 3.8% recorded across the euro area and the slowest since April […]

Read More

Ireland top European country for data fines

Ireland has once again topped a league table of European countries for issuing data fines. The 2024 edition of global law firm DLA Piper’s annual GDPR and Data Breach Survey shows that supervisory authorities across Europe have issued a total of €1.78 billion in fines since 28 January 2023, which is an increase of 14.1% […]

Read More

Taoiseach to meet world leaders and CEOs in Davos

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is in Davos for the World Economic Forum, which has so far been dominated by the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Mr Varadkar is expected to meet a number of world leaders and hold bilateral talks with the chief executive officers of several global corporations. He arrived in Davos last […]

Read More