The economy will grow at a fair clip but the lack of housing, transport, and childcare is holding back business expansion plans and could shape up as the biggest challenge facing the country, Ibec has said.

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).

The chief economist for the largest business lobby group in the country, IBEC, has warned that the Government should be planning for a no-deal Brexit by putting legislation and funding in place “no matter what the outcome.”

Household incomes are at record levels, according to a new report from business group IBEC.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe looks set to have ample room for spending rises and tax cuts in his next budget even as the Government cut the growth outlook.

Consumer spending should grow by 4%, in value terms, this year — topping the €100bn mark for the first time — Ibec has said, but threats to Ireland’s competitiveness are resurfacing it warned.

The country is set for record employment next year, according to a buoyant economic outlook report from employers’ group Ibec.

US property developer Hines is to build more than 1,200 rental houses in south Dublin, at a cost of €450m, “in the coming years”.

The number of people at work has been predicted to rise by 60,000 over the course of 2017 while the average unemployment rate could fall to as low as 6%.

Business group Ibec said — even amid the “massive worry” that Brexit is savaging a number of Irish-owned industries — that overall employment levels will return to their pre-crash peak at the end of next year.

Enda Kenny made big claims five years ago. Yet businesses, and particularly SMEs, are facing the same old problems, writes Peter O’Dwyer

Ireland's economy has grown at the fastest rate since 2000.

Business group Ibec has weighed into the hot election debate on the universal social charge — saying that “moves to abolish the USC are a step in the wrong direction.”

Unemployment has fallen below 9% for the first time since 2008 — but employers’ body Ibec has expressed concern at the disparity in the pace of employment growth between Dublin and the rest of the country.

The relatives of four people murdered after alleged security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in the North are suing the police.

AN application by a company backed by London nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow to open a strip club in Dublin was adjourned until next Monday.