The likelihood of a Trade war between the EU and UK increased this weekend as the EU and US warned the UK over the consequences of failing to implement the UK Withdrawal Agreement. The UK media have called the upcoming Trade War the Sausage Wars. Unfortunately, if it goes ahead, it will increase prices of a lot more than sausages and will very much affect Irish consumers. Bloomberg research ... read more>

The Leaving Cert exams start this week. After two years of pandemic disruption a middle ground is being sought that combines continual assessment with final exams. This is certainly a good idea, very few education systems anywhere in the world stake everything on final exams at the end of a two-year curriculum. Having suffered through the crisis of the pandemic, many sectors of our economy a... read more>

There have been many ups and downs on the rollercoaster of this pandemic. Sometimes Ireland has scored poorly, for example, along with much of the EU were slow to roll out vaccines. We also endured a huge curtailment of civil liberties with more days of lockdown than any other jurisdiction. But, on the positive side, we consistently scored highest in Europe on the survival rates from ICU. Ho... read more>

At the weekend, a Belarusian MiG-29 fighter forced a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk where some of the passengers were detained by local authorities for purely political reasons. These authorities falsely claimed there was a bomb on board. The European Commission has called it outrageous and illegal. Our Taoiseach has said the act is completely unacceptable and called o... read more>

Last week the HSE and the Department of Health IT systems were hacked by a criminal gang demanding that a ransom be paid. They threatened to release the country’s medical records to the internet and continue to deny the HSE access to its own systems. Aside from the threat to all our privacy, for those who are currently undergoing any type of treatment, their health and potentially lives are bei... read more>