The search for a new head of the Department of Finance was frustrated by a salary cap and saw several candidates apply for the position with salaries well over the amount offered.

MORE than seven in 10 Irish executives are upbeat about their career prospects for 2012, a survey carried out by Amárach Research for the recruitment group, Merc Partners, has found.

BUILDING work on a €16 million national maritime and energy research centre is to begin in Cork within months.

THAT there is something rotten in the state hardly needs saying. However, the eradication of rot requires corrective action from the inside out rather than the outside in via bailouts, etc.

The Taoiseach Brian Cowen is admanant Europe won't be given powers to touch Ireland's low corporation tax rate.

Pharmaceutical company Merc is to create high-quality 150 jobs in Dublin, it was announced today.

DO you have any idea how much a Harley-Davidson motorcycle costs? I wanted to find out, because there was a time when you simply wouldn’t see one on Ireland’s roads.

ALL politics is local, they say. And for me, the farmers’ protest of 2003 will always be about my mother breaking four ribs in the cause of Irish agriculture.

In Chicago the Sears Tower, Dirckson Federal Building, Field Museum, MERC, CBOT, Merchandise Mart, O'Hare Airport, Thompson Federal and Bank One have all been closed.