Everyone knows that the global corporate tax system needs to be overhauled, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has said, backing changes to global rules that are under consideration.

In a refinery just outside Uganda’s main airport, workers slip bars of freshly refined gold into clear plastic bags sealed with a sticker of the national flag — black, yellow and red — and the label “Ugandan’s Treasure.”

A surplus in the public finances of €1.4bn or 0.4% is now likely at the end of the year because of higher than expected corporation taxes, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has said.

Over the autumn, stock markets rallied strongly, bond yields rose, and traders scaled back their expectations of further policy easing by central banks.

It is well passed the stage when lip service is being paid to this very pressing issue.

It remains difficult to judge how much of the huge haul in corporate tax revenues are windfalls and will not be repeated in the coming years, according to research by the Department of Finance.

The loss, within a matter of days, of more than 800 jobs at two US multinational companies highlights, once again, the nature of Ireland’s unbalanced economy and the urgent need to assist, promote and encourage indigenous industry.

Last week the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposed breaking a taboo in international corporate taxation that countries only have a right to tax activities from companies that have a physical presence on their soil.

Plans to shake up the way governments tax multinationals, which could upend the decades-old Irish tax regime, are racing ahead, with an agreement possible by next summer.

The Central Statistics Office is to spend €780,000 on providing incentivised gift cards to people participating in two major surveys it is set to conduct.

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), in its latest update on the world economy, said the prospects for global growth have become increasingly fragile and uncertain.

Until under-investment in childcare is tackled, parents will be “left to pick up the pieces”, Early Childhood Ireland claims.

While young people in Ireland are among the most educated globally, low national investment in education is leading to overstretched schools, teaching unions have warned.

Irish primary school classes are among the largest and worst-funded in Europe, a report has found.

A new IMF blog post, arguing that low corporation tax rates harm poor countries, will make uncomfortable reading for the Government, as it battles to maintain Ireland’s decades-old business model.

New figures confirm the “catastrophic consultant” shortage, the Irish Medical Organisation has claimed.

This week the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a number of warnings to Irish policymakers.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned a disorderly Brexit “could plunge the Irish economy into a recession” and that further surges in Irish property prices could lead to another boom-to-bust cycle.

Ireland is reaching targets in relation to available water, economic productivity and carbon emissions coming up to 2030 but falls down when it comes to areas like smoking and access to education, according to a major report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It is common knowledge that Ireland has a problem with the over-consumption of alcohol. What may be so well known is that we also have a problem with mind-altering narcotics, in particular, cocaine, heroin and prescription painkillers.

Providing access to computers in schools is not enough and governments will need to review life-long teaching to keep up with the pace of automation that threatens many jobs, according to a major report.

Coming into 2019, apart from the obvious issue of Brexit, which remains unresolved, the biggest challenge to the small, open Irish economy was undoubtedly the grey clouds that were gathering over the global economy.

It says a lot that at his first rally of America’s 2020 presidential election campaign, Joe Biden promised to rebuild the middle class.

The OECD has urged governments across the world to bolster social protections as workers face another surge of unprecedented automation in the coming years.

The middle class here may have largely escaped the worst of the “bleak” pressures on incomes and rising debt facing their counterparts in many parts of the world, according to a major survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Global economic data have continued to disappoint in early 2019. This has seen the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) lower its growth forecasts yet again for the world economy.

Hospital consultants who can earn up to €250,000 a year will have to be paid more if vacant positions are to be filled, according to Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman Michael McGrath.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), the umbrella body for unions across Ireland, has warned of “a catastrophe” if the UK crashes out of the EU, while the Government’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) said Irish bonds have already been affected by concerns over a no deal Brexit.

Companies cool on foreign direct investment calls, writes John Whelan.

Companies cool on foreign direct investment calls, writes John Whelan.

The scrap among EU countries, with Ireland very much at the centre of the fight, over a proposed tax on tech giants, is set to resume later today when finance ministers try to strike a balance between luring business and addressing popular discontent about companies not paying their fair share.

No company alleged to have bribed foreign officials prosecuted

The Central Bank’s Philip Lane and fiscal watchdog Seamus Coffey have warned about the many risks facing the economy. They should add online shopping to the list, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

Germany plans to raise the minimum wage to €9.19 per hour next year and to €9.35 in 2020, the labour minister said, paving the way for a possible boost to private consumption in Europe’s biggest economy.

The EU is pretty unwilling to allow any concessions that would weaken the structures of the union’s edifice, writes Jim Power.

Irish women in the IT sector are the second-best paid in the world but still lag almost a fifth behind their male counterparts when it comes to pay.

The unveiling, this week, of the EU’s controversial digital turnover tax proposal is “crunch time”, as experts warn about the outsized hit Ireland will take from the levy on the digital giants such as Google, Facebook, and Apple.

The effects of bullying are much harder on immigrant students in Ireland than in most other countries, important new research shows.  

The Government continues to have “reservations” over proposals by the European Commission, which are likely to recommend next week levying a 3% tax on the sales of major online companies. However, the Government believes the debate over the plans will be long drawn out, say officials.

There were 649 patients on trolleys in emergency departments or on wards waiting for a hospital bed yesterday, a decrease of just 65 on Monday’s record high of 714.

International economic thinktank the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has recommended “a comprehensive and necessary” reform package be implemented in order to improve the regulation of energy and water services in Ireland.

Nearly a decade since the onset of the recession, we see a new confident breed of companies driving the economy, creating jobs and fuelling government coffers, writes John Whelan

Irish children are the best in Europe at reading, thanks to major improvements among fourth-class pupils in the last five years.

 A job for life may be a thing of the past but multi-tasking for a living has its drawbacks, writes Sharon Ní Chonchúir.