NERI Seminar Dublin: Enterprise Policy and Ireland’s Economic Recovery
The latest NERI seminar took place this afternoon in the INTO Learning Centre. Seán Ó Riain discussed the place of enterprise policy in Ireland's economic recovery. Seán is a professor of sociology at the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis . Prof. Riain's current research is on the...
Monday Blog: We ignore the environment at our peril
Environmental change has attracted growing concern over recent decades. The recent recession in most European states has diverted attention, temporarily to problems of debt, low-growth and under-utilisation of resources such as labour. Yet, the natural environment plays a huge role in shaping the...
Monday Blog: ‘a serious challenge that businesses and the Government must address’
In Northern Ireland – as in the rest of the United Kingdom – real wages have been falling since 2008. Using data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) the UK-based GMB trade union has estimated that average earnings in Northern Ireland , when adjusted for inflation, have fallen by 12%...
Monday Blog: 2013 - a busy year for the NERI
This month brings to a close a very busy year for the newly established Nevin Economic Research Institute. The NERI has begun to contribute to a much needed and long-overdue debate on policy evidence and policy choices in key areas of relevance to the trade union movement and wider society - labour...
Monday Blog: Where to now (Post-Troika)?
A very strong narrative is gathering pace abroad and at home: There was ‘absolutely’ no alternative to ‘austerity’ in the case of Ireland once the storm broke in 2008; Ireland displayed remarkable and exceptional resilience, consensus and passivity in accepting the ‘tough’ decisions that ‘had to be...
Growth in Northern Ireland not what it seems
The latest figures for Gross Value Added in Northern Ireland were released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics. Gross Value Added is the closest measure to Gross Domestic Product we have for Northern Ireland, it is equal to Gross Domestic Product plus subsidies and minus indirect taxes...
Monday Blog: A Modest Proposal
Suppose you were the Minister of Finance in 2009 and that you were held up and forced to hand over a lot of money to a number of bust banks?. You didn’t have the money at the time so you took it out of a special pension savings fund built up by taxpayers meant for the next 50 years. Suppose that, in...
Monday Blog: Anglo-Irish Bank is dead. Long live its debt?
Not that bank again! Much has been said and written about Anglo-Irish in the context of the banking collapse in 2008 and the sequence of historical events that takes us from the night of the Big Guarantee on 29th September 2008 (or perhaps a modern version of Oíche na gaoithe moiré ) When the Anglo...
Income, Income Trends and their Implications for Recovery Strategies on the Island of Ireland
External event contribution Since 2007 Ireland, North and South, has witnessed recession, austerity and externally imposed economic restructuring. Both territories have seen an end to property bubbles, surges in overall and youth unemployment and notable declines in economic output and disposable incomes. The challenge of...
Monday Blog: Three reasons (at least) why we need a new Investment Bank (S+M+E)
Speaking at a recent conference of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises I outlined, in my presentation , a number of key challenges facing public policy over the coming decades and how Irish-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to be facilitated in much more ambitious strategy and...