There has been lots of talk in recent months about the state of the commercial property industry. Since the pandemic the vacancy rate for offices in Dublin has spiked, yet that tells only a part of the story, according to a commentary in the Irish Times. The latest survey from GeoDirectory, prepared by EY, gives us a snapshot of the market more broadly, and it isn’t a pretty one. The vacancy rate across all commercial properties in the country hit 14.6 per cent at the end of 2025, according to GeoDirectory’s latest report.

Now-bankrupt Celtic Tiger property developer Seán Dunne told the High Court on Wednesday he believed he may be the only “dual bankrupt” in the world, the Irish Times reported. He made the comment in a case in which he is representing himself in his challenge to the validity of the appointment of the Irish officials who oversaw and continue to oversee his bankruptcy estate. The businessman was adjudicated a bankrupt in the United States and in Ireland in 2013, with bank debts of hundreds of millions of euro. He remains a bankrupt in both jurisdictions.

A Circuit Court judge has refused to confirm the appointment of an examiner over three companies tied to KC Capital Property Group, the Irish Times reported. The developer is appealing the decision in the High Court. That will be heard next week. KC Capital is behind a nine-storey office block on Cuffe Street beside St Stephen’s Green, known as the Greenside Building, with the court hearing it has built up debts in excess of €55 million in the construction phase but just two months of work remain.

Bank of Ireland is to pull out of its US leveraged acquisitions finance business, exiting a business that had accounted for the bulk of a €137 million bad loan provision in its most recent results, the Irish Times reported. The lender will run down its loan book over the next three years or so, it said in a statement. The book was worth about €1.2 billion at the end of 2025, having had an average value of €1.6 billion throughout the year, it added.

An Irish High Court ruling on arbitration in construction payments disputes puts builders at increased risk of insolvency unless the Oireachtas changes the law, experts warn, the Irish Times reported. Lawyers say that the court’s ruling in a recent case dealing with the Construction Contracts Act, 2013, could allow clients to stall payments to builders. That could hit cash flows where there are disputes, forcing companies into insolvency, particularly if the economy slows, they predict.

Ireland’s jobless rate was 4.7 per cent in January, unchanged from the previous month, but up from 4.5 per cent in January 2025, the Irish Times reported. Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures indicated the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in January was 138,400, compared with 137,800 in December 2025. The January total represented an annual increase of 8,600.

The Irish economy grew at an accelerated rate of 12.6 per cent in gross domestic product (GDP) terms last year as multinationals front-loaded goods exports into the US to avoid tariffs, the Irish Times reported. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) cautioned that its estimate of GDP growth for 2025 was preliminary and based on “incomplete” data sources. If confirmed, however, it will make Ireland the fastest-growing economy in Europe and one of the fastest in the world.

Property price inflation slowed to 6.6 per cent in the year to November, down from the 7.2 per cent recorded in October, new data from Ireland's Central Statistics Office shows, the Irish Times reported. Property prices in Dublin rose by 5 per cent, while prices outside the capital were up by 7.9 per cent compared with November 2024. The median price of a home purchased in the 12 months to November was €384,000. The highest median price was €677,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, while the lowest was €190,000 in Donegal.

The Irish High Court has appointed a provisional liquidator to a Co Galway automation equipment firm that ran into financial difficulty following a customer’s cancellation of a major contract, the Irish Times reported. Mr Justice Oisín Quinn on Friday appointed liquidator David van Dessel to Megadale Ltd, with offices at Briarhill Business Park, Ballybrit, following a petition moved on behalf of the company itself.