Business News

The Government’s new auto enrolment system, My Future Fund, is due to begin on 1 January 2026, and employers are being urged to prepare now. The final chance to have eligible employees entered into an existing pension scheme is the November 2025 payroll. Anyone not already enrolled at that point will be automatically included in…

Many jobseekers are finding that recruitment has become a marathon rather than a sprint. Roles that carry any real responsibility or competitive salary often involve several stages of screening, from online tests and case studies to panel interviews and culture-fit meetings. Some of these steps focus on technical ability, others on personality and values, yet…

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has submitted a formal complaint to the European Ombudsman, raising concerns about the European Commission’s use of generative artificial intelligence in official documentation. The issue came to light after an access to documents request revealed that at least one hyperlink in a Commission response had been produced using OpenAI’s…

Ireland’s annual inflation rate climbed to 2.9% in October, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office. This marks the highest annual reading since March and represents a slight rise from the 2.7% recorded in September. The CSO figures show that the strongest upward pressure came from Education costs, which increased by 8.4% over…

The Government has moved to defend its decision to remove annual delivery targets from its latest housing strategy, arguing that rigid yearly numbers can distract from long-term progress. Minister for Housing James Browne said that data on housing completions will still be published each year, but that fixed annual benchmarks are not always the most…

Children’s charity Barnardos has called on the Government to introduce a suite of measures to assist parents with back-to-school costs. They include a voluntary contribution code of practice, extension of the free book scheme to all secondary school students, affordable uniform options, an increased back-to-school allowance for parents on low income and a digital education…

Almost €400m in new lending for the construction of new homes was approved by the State’s building finance body in the first half of 2024. That will go towards the construction of just over 2,700 housing units, according to Home Building Finance Ireland. It brings to €2.05 billion the amount approved by the HBFI since…

A plan to transform the rail system on the island of Ireland through electrification, additional track capacity, increased speeds and more frequent services is to be published. The final report from the All-Island Strategic Rail Review sets out a vision up to 2050 and was jointly commissioned by authorities north and south. The cost of…

The latest “flash” estimate of inflation from the Central Statistics Office shows that the annual rate came in at 1.5% in the year to July, unchanged from a more than three-year low in June. The rate of 1.5% compares with an annual increase of 2.5% in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the…

There has been an increase in the number of workers in Ireland who cannot afford a week’s holiday away from home, either in their own country or abroad, according to new research. Analysis of EU data for the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has found that in 2022, an estimated 14.8% of Irish workers could…