A €3.7bn wage and welfare package will see the State pay workers impacted by Covid-19 up to €410 per week while the unemployed will see payments increased.

The Government looks set to unveil an unprecedented income-support scheme in the coming days in which it will pay 75% or 80% of the wages of the thousands of workers who have lost and will lose their jobs amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Ibec launched a report in support of these calls for increased government funding for Irish businesses.

Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation Heather Humphreys has said that the government will not be found wanting in providing the necessary supports to get businesses back up and running and people back to work following the impact of the coronavirus.

A major surge is expected in bad loans as many businesses go under and homeowners struggle to pay their mortgage.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

In a letter sent to IBEC, the union says it believes the normal condition for sick leave should apply in circumstances where an employee contracts COVID-19.

There was a whiff of desperation about the abuse heaped on Sinn Féin and its economic plan by Simon Coveney and Paschal Donohoe, their denunciations echoing around the City Assembly rooms yesterday morning.

Many retailers in Ireland are facing significant challenges in sustaining their businesses despite the economic recovery, Retail Excellence has said in its election manifesto.

Dublin city council has given the go-ahead for a fresh look at introducing a hotel bed tax in Dublin.

Very few people in Ireland, least of all those of us working in the Irish drinks industry, would have voted for Britain to leave the EU.

“We have not seen any fall-off in recruitment in these sectors”

A survey conducted by the Irish Medtech Association (IMA), an Ibec group, has found that 74% of medtech businesses plan to increase R&D in Ireland during 2020.

Employers are advised to pay more attention to workplace investigations as a means of heading off trouble at the pass, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

POLITICAL weather vanes pop up in the strangest places. If you want to know what the next general election will be about, the answer was contained in a recent speech and interview with the head of the employers’ body, Ibec.

A business umbrella group has hit out at new Government rules allowing up to 60,000 parents to take two extra weeks of paid leave in the first year of their child's life, claiming it will damage firms and is not based on any "common sense".

Longer term planning and investment — and top management involvement in upskilling programmes — is required to sustain the jobs market, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

Over three-quarters of all firms plan to award wage increases next year despite the continuing uncertainty about the twists that Brexit could yet take, according to employers’ group Ibec.

Neil and Aileen Walker live in a timber-framed detached home built in the 1990s.

Fears have been raised that Irish goods could be dragged into

A further softening in retail sales is expected as the second half of the year progresses, after a continued slowdown in consumer spending in the past three months.

The Government is being urged to keep its nerve and roll out its spending plans on roads, public transport, businesses, and education, to meet the threats of Brexit, trade wars, and the reforms of global tax regimes (which could undermine the country’s corporation tax).