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It’s the Friday before the August Bank Holiday, and time for TheJournal.ie‘s round-up of the most important business, SME, and economic stories of the week.
Read this, then for goodness sake LEAVE THE OFFICE.
Need to know
Rude health?
It was a good week for the Irish economy, according to a few key indicators.
On Wednesday morning we heard that the unemployment rate had dropped (again) to 11.5% in June.
That’s a fall of 0.1%, and means that 382,800 of us are now unemployed, down 3,400 from the month before.
That news buttressed quarterly CSO figures which showed that the government deficit had fallen to 5.6% of GDP, down from 7.9% this time last year.
Government revenue went up €736 million from the first quarter of 2013, to €14.6 billion in Q1 2014.
And there was a pleasant surprise to start the week, when the Central Bank predicted, in its third-quarter bulletin, that the Irish economy would grow by 2.5% this year.
Dame Street had previously predicted a 2% GDP growth, but better-than-expected export performance and a stabilising domestic demand led to an upward revision.
Nice to know
Now you know
The outbox
Amazon followed eBay’s lead and announced its very own 3D printing store… Depositors at the liquidated Berehaven Credit Union started to get their money back… Samsung blamed their profit slump on increased smartphone competition…and last year 32,154 new .ie websites were registered in Ireland – most of them business-related.
One for the road
This could be the busiest weekend of the entire year for packing the car and heading to favourite summer spot on the island.
In light of that, and after a few intriguing studies recently, we asked you whether it makes more financial sense to holiday abroad or in Ireland.
The results of the poll so far are extremely revealing – check it out, and have your say here.
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This president is amazing. MaryRobinson was a great for international relations but this little fella is what Ireland needs now. His articulation is perfect and his ideas are what we should be striving towards. BRILLIANT………..!!!
Nice planet you live on there Al – yourself and Michael D. If you manage to get back to Ireland 2013 join the protests tomorrow evening again austerity, cuts, water charges, evictions, emigration and property tax imposed on us by Michael D Higgins’ Labour, the 4.5% Party
Al, 100 per cent agree.
That flag needs to be out flying in the fields and roads of Ireland so we can reclaim this country from the failed politics of FF, FG and LAb.
These charlatans in the Labour Party have no concept of what the Starry Plough really stands for. The great men of the Irish Citizen Army would be appalled to be associated in any way with today’s Labour Party in any way. Just words from Higgins, if he meant them he would have taken a different journey than staying in the Labour Party for all those years
A new version of Irishness? Is that an app I can download or what? This guy is a joke and the biggest yes man going.
A lot of vitriol in these comments towards Michael D. Higgins who is just about the last person in the sphere of Irish politics who deserves it.
Agree with you Al, but in my opinion he wasted as president, feel like he has a lot more to say but can’t go that far
It must be so easy for Higgins to lecture us, the plebs, on morality and hardship with his 6 digit salary and pension. Then again I can’t say I am surprised, he is in Labour after all.
What do they mean by the ‘conservation’ of the flag? Are they repairing the original one or is it a special ceremony or what?
A new version of Irish ness? One that includes jailing bankers, not paying back illegal gambling debts, and taking care f our citizens first?
Good God…this man reminds me more and more of Uncle Albert every day! How much does the office of President cost us again?
I have a yearning that politicos would cease these meandering, worthless discourses on claptrap like “renewing Irishness” and actually come up with something tangible and workable for once.
Whenever I hear a politician talking about Irishness, I know meaningless navel-gazing waffle is forthcoming and plenty of worthies will be having a good old jaw over four course dinners on the topic, itself a complete abstract and totally irrelevance.
Enlighten us with your philosophy. Anything positive to say?.
That Communist prat is way by his sell by date. He’s not supposed to be “political” so how come he’s not fired.
@William the fact that you call him a communist shows that you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about
What’s the difference between Higgins and a Communist then?
Higgins constantly talks about being a social democrat for one. He often refers to the need of a defined “social floor”, a floor that people in our capitalist society should not be allowed to fall under. Words over actions aside, he seems fine with the capitalist system as long as there are those safety nets for the most vulnerable in our society. How does that make him a “communist”? (switch off Fox News pal, it hinders your perception)
The only real communists on this planet are Buddhists William, you may have noticed our Uachtarán lives in a big house in the middle of town.
Love that prez
I hope the champagne socialist didn’t show up.
I can only imagine how our Irish Citizen Army heroes feel about how Labour had turned there back on the working classes since the 1980s!
That man lives in a Fantasy world far removed from what’s going on outside the Park
Even though i voted for Mr Higgins it was by process of elimination rather than any admiration,i knew his ideas were socialist left,and me being a free market man who provided employment for people in my life,i still cant get my head around the fact that Ireland admires such people as poets more than those that create the wealth the country needs for its citizens.
Nobody needs wealth Richard. What we need is stability, security and freedom from the shackles of past ideologies. Creating wealth got us into this mess, and it’s not going to get us out. What’s wrong with admiring Poets? I have to say that Higgins was not even on my radar as a politician, but as Uachtarán I think he has come of age.
because the propagators of the free market only care about personal profit. They’re hardly going to be popular in a country where people are directly paying for the collapse of a unregulated the neo liberal, free market economy. I can see where you are coming from in relation to the “wealth creators” but the balance of regulation is so important. A balance that protects the ecomony from wreckless, short term profits while at the same time ensuring that the market is not over regulated, stifling investment and expansion of the private sector. I’m living in Canada at the moment and you can really see how this method (particularly in their banking system) had worked for them in comparison to the “free market” Americans.
Sounds good but the fact is we will only survive as a country by creating jobs for our people.
There is unfortunately no alternative to capitalism as an economic system. It promotes innovation and is highly ptoductive, even Marx acknowledged that in his Manifesto. It is the type of capitalism that we allow that is the problem. Unregulated and unhindered by trade unions it will devour itself. In the USA fir example the average industrial wage has remained static while the income of the top decile has increaded by about 23 per cent. In the globalised labour force capital can be shifted around electronically , undermining the economies of nation states and exploiting poor workrrs, resulting in disasters like that collapsed building in Bangladesh. I for one think President O Higgins is on the money. He is a welcone voice out there in a cacophony of neo liberalism.
I hope he is right in what he says. Capitalism doesn’t believe in society but I do.
Irishness: does he mean the gombeen tendency or the sheep like obedience to the master?
Ya ya ya…… Zzzzzzzzzz.
Although I am not a Socialist, I admire Michael D and I consider he to be the best President for Ireland in these difficult times. The Plough and the Stars is a wonderful historical flag and reminds us of the land where so many of us have come from and the Stars which we look up to on a good night.
Great insightful speech by President Michael D.
It more like we’re yearning for a revolution
I remember last year some criminals sawed off the stars for scrap. Good to see the statue back to its original glory, never gets enough attention.
In what sector in Irish is individualist? The govenment grew under the PDs.
It’s good to see that the president is addressing the important issues facing Irish society today.
have your say