Michael Noonan’s 2017 budget is already on course to break EU rules even before any breaches in the Lansdowne Road public pay agreement are accounted for, the country’s fiscal watchdog has said.

As John McHale prepares to step down from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, he can scan across the positives of the Irish economy since the watchdog was set up at the height of the crisis.

UK prime minister Theresa May will “move heaven and earth” to trigger Article 50 and start its divorce talks with the EU by the end of March, but there is no disguising that London is badly prepared for the looming negotiations, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon told a business gathering in Dublin.

The pressure facing retailers over the ‘Long Black Friday’ weekend following the plunge in sterling since the Brexit vote could ease significantly as the euro faces the first of its own looming tests next week, according to analysts.

A huge downward revision by the UK government of its bailed-out banks has once again put a spotlight on the over-valuation of AIB and other banks here on the State’s books.

The Central Bank had by accident dropped into a political fight which it was never going to lose, but has nonetheless avoided a much messier outcome by sanctioning only minor changes to its inflexible mortgage lending rules.