Yesterday, the Central Bank announced a record €100.5 million fine for Bank of Ireland over its treatment of customers on tracker mortgages. The fine, however, doesn't explain the 9.6 per cent drop in the bank's market value since Wednesday.
The combination of higher yields and weaker sterling says the market is expecting much higher inflation in the UK. For mortgage holders, it's a scary prospect.
The Minister for Finance frets that Ireland is over reliant on a handful of multinationals. But without more housing, any effort to diversify our industrial base won't work.
The cost-of-living crisis was clearly, and rightly, the dominant factor behind this Budget. But it was not the only factor. This Budget was also political. With Sinn Féin rising in the polls, it also needed to send a strong message.
Over 60% of 18–34-year-olds in Ireland live with their parents, compared to just one in six Danes. And just 4% of Irish 18–24-year-olds in Ireland live alone or with a partner, compared to two thirds of Swedes. We have failed our younger adults in housing.
While central banks can influence the price of money, and hope this will help hit their inflation targets, the comforting certainty of their power is more hopeful myth than grounded reality. We should be wary of it.
Even without the global tech slide and the wider economic uncertainty, it was always unlikely that this year could match 2021 for funding. However, there are a number of issues impacting the Irish tech ecosystem right now that need to be addressed.
Graeme Souness and Jack Grealish had a very modern argument this week, but the player is living and playing in a different world to the one Souness once inhabited.
Investors are now buying UK gilts in a country with a large, widening current account deficit, barely credible fiscal metrics, a narrow tax base, and a volatile and rapidly weakening currency. The yield cost to the British Exchequer can only rise.
The response to the Commission on Taxation highlights yet again that this government, like the one before it, is not that interested in the sometimes difficult opinions of experts. This is a pity.
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