THERE were few surprises at the outcome of the ECB’s first governing council meeting of 2012.

IT came as no great surprise last Thursday that at the end of its monetary policy meeting, the ECB cut official interest rates by 0.25% for the second month running.

MORTGAGE-holders may be in line for significant reductions on their monthly repayments with an interest rate cut predicted this week.

THE European Commission published its latest economic forecasts for the EU and the eurozone last week which highlighted the growing risks of recession in the eurozone and the dangers posed to the global economy from the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area.

OFFICERS from Surrey Police in Britain are “likely” to have fallen victim to phone hacking as detectives investigated the disappearance of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, a seminar has heard.

NEWS that the economy expanded 0.5% on a GDP basis and 1.1% on a GNP basis in the third quarter of the year compared to the second quarter is the latest piece of encouraging data published recently on our economy.

IRELAND is once again in the international media spotlight as concerns resurface about the scale of the banking, fiscal and economic problems facing the country. This has resulted in a rise in the spread between the rates for Irish debt over benchmark issuers such as Germany.

THE European Central Bank again left its official refinancing rate unchanged at 1% when the Governing Council met last week. This decision was totally as expected.

THE Irish economy may have grown in the first quarter of this year according to Bank of Ireland, contrary to most predictions which said it would only start to recover in the second half of the year.

THE European Central Bank cut official interest rates by 0.5% last Thursday, bringing the total reduction in rates in the eurozone to 1% in the past month.

THE IDA (Industrial Development Agency) has put a team in place in the US to lobby Barack Obama on tax issues should he become president.

THE Irish property slump will continue “for some while yet”, said Allied Irish Banks, the country’s biggest lender by market value.

TWO leading central banks, the ECB and the Bank of England, meet this week to discuss monetary policy.

OIL prices continue to make new highs. Having been propelled through the $100/barrel barrier in February, US light crude is trading above $115/barrel.

AIB HAS cut its economic growth forecast for this year, saying the economy is cooling more than it had previously forecast.

THE annual headline rate of inflation, as measured by the CPI, has averaged close to 5% year to date.

THERE is no need for Finance Minister Brian Cowen to introduce a harsh budget on December 5, according to economist John Beggs.

AIB warned yesterday house prices could fall by 2% from their present levels by the year end.

The British High Court was asked today to order a fresh inquest on a man who died after being restrained “head down in garden mud” by a number of police officers.

A NUMBER of key central banks have outlined their views on inflationary risks in their respective economies in recent weeks.

FINANCIAL markets got two surprises last Thursday, one bigger than the other. The bigger surprise was the decision by the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to raise official British interest rates by 0.25% to 5.25%.

BASED on the data published in last Saturday’s government White Paper on Receipts and Expenditure, the scene is set for a very generous Budget tomorrow.

The rate of increase in house prices is set to ease, the country’s largest bank claimed today.

AIB's chief economist has predicted that the Government will not engage in reckless spending in its final budget before the next election.

Opposition TDs today called on the Government to beef up the National Consumer Agency to stave off a potential 10% hike in the price of everyday goods over the winter.

ONE of the main uncertainties that have unsettled financial markets recently has been the extent of inflationary pressures in the major economies and the likely response of central bankers to these pressures.

CONSUMERS were hit with a double whammy yesterday as petrol prices rose sharply and the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that an interest rate hike was on the way.

DOMESTIC demand will be the key driver of economic growth, AIB, the country’s largest bank, said yesterday.

HOUSE prices are rising at such an alarming rate that first-time buyers will find it almost impossible to get on the property ladder the country’s largest bank warned yesterday.

One of the country’s largest banks today warned that current house price rises are unsustainable.

AIB has become the latest financial institution to say it does not expect any price crash in the Irish property market.

NON-IRISH workers filled almost half the 96,200 jobs created in Ireland in the first nine months of last year.

STRONG recovery indicators from Germany brings higher Eurozone interest rates closer, economists warned yesterday.

IT was the proverbial elephant in the room for long enough in the Irish economic context.

STRONG demand is pushing the price of houses higher than expected, according to a major new study by AIB.

The AIB bank has made some startling predictions on the property front today.

HOUSES are set to become significantly more affordable as the rate of house price inflation begins to fall below the overall inflation rate for the first time in years, according to new research from AIB.

THE eurozone's Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) may have risen above 2% again in February, but in reality the figures should be of great comfort to the ECB.

AIB joined the chorus of upbeat views on the Irish economy yesterday, with predictions that Irish GDP growth would top 5.5% this year and that the housing market was in line for a soft landing after years of runaway price rises.

BIGGER question marks hang over the Irish housing market than whether the market has overheated or not.

THERE is no danger of a crash in the property market, but it may be in for a soft landing, according to the latest forecast by the country’s leading bank.

SOLID prospects for the economy over the next two years have been forecast by AIB chief economist John Beggs.

A recovery in the US economy is a key ingredient in the prevailing view that there will be an upturn in the global economy in the second half of 2003.