Economic slump hits Ireland Inc

This week, the Economic and Social Research Institute said recession will occur in Ireland for the first time in 25 years. This means the economy will shrink for at least six months in a row. Conor Ryan looks at the likely battlegrounds in the fight to regain control of the economy.

Employment

MONDAY’s announcement from insurance company Hibernian that it is to ship 580 jobs to India hammered home the doom-and-gloom report from the ESRI. The report said unemployment would rise to 7.1% in 2009 and analysts are looking at two emerging factors likely to affect this.