Ireland’s economy surged in the three months through March as U.S. pharmaceutical giants based in the country boosted production to build stockpiles back home ahead of threatened tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ireland’s strong start to the year, alongside a pickup in Belgium, supported eurozone growth as 2025 got underway, with figures for the currency area to be released Wednesday. Spain, which also released figures Tuesday, recorded a slight slowdown, while continuing to grow at a robust pace. However, high levels of production to build reserves of drugs in the U.S.

Average Irish mortgage drawdowns hit a record of almost €328,000 in the first three months of the year, according to figures from the banking industry, as borrowers took on more debt as home prices continued to soar amid a shortage of properties for sale, the Irish Times reported. This was driven by a 9.6 per cent annual rise in loans on second-hand properties, to €370,790, according to Banking and Payments Federation Ireland’s (BPFI) latest quarterly mortgage drawdowns report, which draws on data going back to 2005.

Grocery prices are now climbing much faster than they were this time last year with fresh data from retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel suggesting that inflation in Irish supermarkets currently stands at just over 4.5 per cent, the Irish Times reported. The latest figure compared to a rate of less than 3 per cent in June of last year with the spike in prices leading to a slowdown in sales recorded in recent weeks. Take-home value sales in Ireland increased by 3.4 per cent over the four weeks to March 23rd 2025 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest grocery data.

Ireland’s economy would suffer a significant blow and could even risk recession if U.S. President Trump targeted the country with higher tariffs or changed tax rules, the Central Bank of Ireland said Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a quarterly report, the central bank lowered its growth forecasts for this year and next, citing the impact of uncertainty about Trump’s future actions on investment and exports. It now expects gross domestic product to grow by 4% in both 2025 and 2026, having previously forecast an expansion of 4.2% this year and 4.5% next.

Since the beginning of the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, there have existed two different insolvency regimes on the island of Ireland, the Irish News reported. In 2024, there were 852 total insolvencies in the Republic, a 16% increase on 2023. Some 305 companies in Northern Ireland declared insolvency in 2024, an almost 40% increase. Of course, a portion of the explanation will always rest on the sizes of the respective jurisdictions, but Northern Ireland’s much stricter post-Covid insolvency procedures can also help us understand this discrepancy.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama), the state’s ‘bad bank’, appears to have got the best available price for a Northern Ireland portfolio of loans known as Project Eagle, a seven-year investigation has found, the Irish Independent reported. Nama had previously been criticised by the Comptroller & Auditor General for making a loss of £162m (€195m) from selling assets in Northern Ireland, and for the way it handled the sale. This prompted the Irish government to set up a commission of inquiry in 2017, which reported last October after several extensions.

More than half of councils responsible for special educational needs provision will not be able to balance their books when a “statutory override” ends next year, a survey has suggested, the Irish News reported. Councils are able to keep high needs deficits – where the cost of providing support outstrips the special educational needs and disabilities budgets available to councils – off their main revenue accounts.

A solicitor’s secretary has won around €7,000 for unpaid wages and statutory redundancy after her employer became insolvent and a plan to have her transfer to another firm fell through, The Irish Times reported. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) made orders against David Gaffney, trading as Gaffney Solicitors, on foot of complaints under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 by Leona Erangey in a decision published on Wednesday.

The Irish economy recorded a surprise contraction as 2024 drew to a close, a blow to the eurozone economy, of which it is one of smallest but most changeable members, the Wall Street Journal reported. But while the country’s central bank expects to see a return to growth this year and next, it has also warned that the Irish economy is particularly vulnerable to changes in tax and tariff policies under President Trump’s second administration.