Rising wages and easing inflation will spell good news for Irish workers over the next two years, but analysts caution that risks to continued growth are increasing at the same time. Increasing numbers at work, higher tax takes and slowing price rises all indicate that the Irish economy will grow this year, according to stockbrokers, Davy.
“We expect a continued strong performance for the economy in 2025 and 2026,” says a report written by the firm’s chief economist, Kevin Timoney, and analysts Diarmaid Sheridan and Colin Sheridan. Barry O’Halloran has the details.
Almost 80,000 new homes will be built in the State over the next two years but the 2024 total will fall short of Government forecasts, one expert says. The Republic will need 52,000 new dwellings a year to get on top of its long-running housing crisis, according to the Central Bank of Ireland, while Government pledges run to 50,000 annually. Barry O’Halloran reports.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) could be worth €148 million to the Republic’s economy by 2038, a new report has claimed, boosting growth and productivity significantly. However, failure to take action, by government and business, could mean up to €96 million in potential value lost if the focus is purely on automating existing processes rather than performing higher-value tasks. The Republic could take a leading role in generative AI technology noted Accenture’s report, Generating Growth: How generative AI can power Ireland’s reinvention, writes Ciara O’Brien
A new entrant to the Irish student travel market is offering cheaper J1 Visas here in a move likely to lure more young people to spend time in the US. The US J1 programme gives students the chance to spend time in the US on cultural exchanges, for work, to intern or engage in other activities. Barry O’Halloran reports.
There is no doubt that the influence of others can be a powerful climate policy tool. Research has long shown that one of the main reasons people put solar panels on their roofs is not because they are well-off or green-minded. It’s because their neighbours have done it first, writes Pilita Clark in her column. Living within 500 metres of a visible rooftop solar system makes you more likely to install one yourself, an analysis of Connecticut households shows, with each visible panel increasing by 6.5 per cent the chances you will follow suit.
Smaller nations such as Ireland, under our new government, must now take greater responsibility in addressing Europe’s challenges. Europe cannot let the politics of other blocs distract from resolving the structural issues hindering its own growth and living standards, argues Danny McCoy, chief executive of Ibec, in our weekly opinion slot.
At a meeting last month, Louth county councillors took what one insider called “the nuclear option” in not only blocking a proposed housing development near Dundalk but voting to have the land dezoned altogether, writes Eoin Burke-Kennedy in his column. And it wasn’t just councillors from one party. The motion to get the 46-acre site at Haggardstown close to Dundalk Golf Club, on which Glenveagh Properties is proposing to build 502 homes, dezoned was proposed by Green Party councillor Marianne Butler and supported by the five Sinn Féin, three Fine Gael, three Fianna Fáil and three Independent councillors present.
A reader seeks advice from Dominic Coyle on how to avoid paying tax twice on a house she owns a share of in Northern Ireland but she is resident in the Republic.
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