\u201cFashion made statements then. Now, it is just dictated by a couple of brands mostly in Italy and France and we follow on their coat tails, so it is an uneven field \u2013 to get recognised you either have to be 18 or a millionaire. Being a boring middle-class father of seven is not the most exciting prospect, which I am happy with, but maybe pride drives me on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The late Irish fashion designer Paul Costelloe<\/a>, in an interview with The Irish Times in January, recalls Katherine Hamnett\u2019s famous anti-nuclear T-shirt worn to 10 Downing Street to meet Margaret Thatcher.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked out that there could be between five and seven different agencies involved in a data centr<\/a>e. You get over one hurdle, you have to deal with another. You get over this hurdle, you have to go to the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency]. You go to EPA, you can\u2019t get a gas connection. That makes it difficult when you have other advanced jurisdictions, including the Netherlands, which has a department of digital infrastructure, or the UK, who are going to treat data as critical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n In February, Garry Connolly of industry lobby group Digital Infrastructure Ireland said negativity here around data centres has resulted in multinationals bypassing the State for investment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re young you\u2019ve nothing to lose. Ignorance is a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Padraic Rhatigan, who opened the Radisson Red hotel on the outskirts of Galway as one part of a major residential and commercial development, reflected in February on taking over the family business while still in his teens.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks, guys.\u201d<\/p>\n Tesla chief executive Elon Musk to shareholders after they voted to approve his $1 trillion (\u20ac856 billion) compensation plan in November, awarding the world\u2019s richest person what would be the largest corporate payout in history if he meets the goals necessary to receive it.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo hundred and twenty eight homes were blocked in Killarney because they would interrupt the commute of a roost of horseshoe bats. Who signed up for this?\u201d<\/p>\n In October, Stripe cofounder John Collison looked at how the State<\/a> can get out of the government-by-agency corner into which it has painted itself.<\/p>\n \u201cWithin 15 to 25 years, I think it will be mandated that there will be autonomous vehicles. People will not be allowed to drive anything. Public transport systems in the future will become much more efficient. Buses will know what and where the demand is and will organise themselves accordingly.\u201d <\/p>\n Also in October, businessman Dermot Desmond called on the Government to scrap the long-awaited MetroLink project and instead plan for wide-scale autonomously-driven bus services.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking back, juggling these jobs and being a single parent with teenage kids, I genuinely don\u2019t know how I did it. But I wanted to do it \u2013 to be a role model to my girls. Equally, having left school with only a few O-levels, I wanted to add something else to my CV.\u201d<\/p>\n BMW Ireland boss Helen Westby in February on working her way through various roles in BMW, looking after her daughters, and completing an MBA.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost becoming a sort of a two-tier [health service] where you hear clinicians and oncologists certainly talking about it, that they can prescribe a certain medicine to these patients, but the other patients can\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview with The Irish Times<\/a>, Samantha Humphreys, who leads pharma group MSD\u2019s Irish business, spoke on how private health insurers have taken to approving payment for certain drugs that have been approved by the European Medicines Agency but are still working their way through the Irish system.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to hire some pudding whose particular talent will be not upsetting Fingal County Council or the morons in the Department of Transport.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryanair chief executive Michael O\u2019Leary last month expressed faux confidence in airport operator DAA\u2019s recruitment processes after a rift emerged between the board of the State company and its chief executive Kenny Jacobs. At the time of O\u2019Leary\u2019s quote, the two sides had agreed a settlement that would have seen Jacobs leave the business. <\/p>\n \u201cI guess a potential Fed chair is here too. I don\u2019t know. Are we allowed to say that? Potential? He\u2019s a respected person \u2013 that I can tell you. Thank you, Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n US president Donald Trump keeps nobody guessing as to who he intends to appoint chairman of the Federal Reserve early next year as he introduces top White House economic official Kevin Hassett at an event.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be wrong not to confront the fact that we absolutely need gas for this transition. The overseas investors on which our economy depends will move in two or three years without reassurance that energy supplies here are secure.\u201d<\/p>\n Bord G\u00e1is Energy chief executive Dave Kirwan last month made the argument that gas remains vital to the State, arguing that it will play a central role in aiding us to end fossil-fuel dependence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all know it\u2019s only going one way, the demographics are going to double for over-65s in the next 10 years, over-85s as well. So, there\u2019s a huge demand presently not to think about the future.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Bord G\u00e1is Energy\u2019s Dave Kirwan on Irish energy prices and the case for nuclear powerOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n In April, Shane Jennings, the former rugby player and now chief executive of Dovida, Ireland\u2019s largest homecare group, gave his take on the State\u2019s preparations for dealing with an ageing population.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a nice fellah. He would go to the local pub for a pint in the evening and play some pool with the lads. I got to play a game with him in Fitzgerald\u2019s of Avoca. He was good.\u201d<\/p>\n In October, Tesco Ireland boss Geoff Byrne recounted losing a game of pool to actor Colin Farrell while he was shooting the Ballykissangel drama series in Co Wicklow.<\/p>\n \u201cI had lunch with 14 European CEOs [at Davos] and the pessimism, you could cut it with a knife. It was so palpable \u2013 and it just was so obvious to me that the pessimism was overdone. But the pessimism was loud enough that I think finally the Europeans were waking up and saying, \u2018we got to change\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, the world\u2019s largest asset manager, said European leaders should lighten up about the outlook for the continent despite a decade and a half of low growth and a perception that business is being over-regulated.<\/p>\n [\u00a0King of Wall Street says European leaders \u2018starting to focus on a growth agenda, not a control agenda\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cIt was hugely special. It couldn\u2019t get any more special than under the lights in Croke Park. It was the first round of the league against the Dubs. To beat them and get front page of many newspapers … it couldn\u2019t have started any better. It was downhill after that. We didn\u2019t do a whole lot of winning.\u201d<\/p>\n Ciaran Marron of Monaghan-based Activ8 Solar Energies spoke in May about the rough and tumble of business<\/a> after the Monaghan senior football team walked out on to the pitch at Croke Park to play All Ireland champions Dublin wearing jerseys emblazoned with the Activ8 logo.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the most popular Bill ever signed in the history of the country. What we\u2019ve done is put everything into one Bill. We\u2019ve never had anything like that before.\u201d<\/p>\n US president Donald Trump in July speaking to the media as his \u201cbig, beautiful Bill\u201d, a sweeping spending package, is signed into law during a picnic at the White House.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the family. The older kids were at university and the younger ones were behind me in school. I spent years dealing with the bank trying to pay down debt and get rid of things.\u201d<\/p>\n In the summer, serial dealmaker Cathal Friel, the seventh of 10 children, spoke about having to leave school at 16 to run indebted businesses when his father became ill. It left him with a lifelong aversion to debt and property investment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe importance and benefit of international co-operation has been a key theme of my public life. I will soon be taking up the role of managing director and chief knowledge officer of the World Bank Group, based in Washington DC. I am therefore departing from public life in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n Then minister for finance Paschal Donohoe resigned his D\u00e1il seat and left ministerial office to take up a role at the World Bank.<\/p>\n \u201cThey stopped pretending. The mask is off. You\u2019re getting fired if you speak out. Back in the day, [tech employees] used to be even asking questions [of their employer] in the comments on company chat boards.\u201d<\/p>\n In June, William Fitzgerald, the Waterford-born founder of The Worker Agency, spoke about the slavishness of tech barons to the Trump administration despite Silicon Valley\u2019s previous outwardly liberal gloss.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up on checkouts from a young age and it\u2019s in my DNA. I grew up in that environment and it teaches you so much about efficiencies, waste and getting value for the customer. I was on the checkout from nine or 10 years of age right up to leaving university.\u201d<\/p>\n In September, Robert Ryan, the chief executive of Lidl\u2019s Irish business, explained how he got a taste from retail from an early age while working in the family shop.<\/p>\n 2025 in numbers\u20ac789,000<\/p>\n The median price paid for a home in Dublin 6 in the third quarter, making it the most expensive Eircode in the State, according to property firm Geowox. The district, which includes Rathmines, Ranelagh and Rathgar, recorded the highest median sales price in the State, up 23 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n 5 per cent<\/p>\n The State\u2019s jobless rate in July, hitting that mark for the first time since January 2022, according to revised figures from the Central Statistics Office.<\/p>\n \u20ac1.4 billion<\/p>\n The amount paid by Scandinavian property companies Pandox and Eiendomsspar as they agreed to buy Ireland\u2019s largest hotel group Dalata.<\/p>\n Dalata, which operates 56 hotels under the four-star Maldron and Clayton brands, mainly in Ireland and Britain, had rejected an initial bid from Pandox and Eiendomsspar in early June that had valued the hotel operator at \u20ac1.3 billion.<\/p>\n The proposed severance deal for airport operator DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs that was taken off the table after Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien blocked the payment, raising yet more questions about the months-long standoff at the top of the airports group.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Severance deal of near \u20ac1m for DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs off the tableOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien in November refused to approve the \u20ac960,000 payment to Mr Jacobs, which was agreed in September after mediation between the chief executive and the DAA board in talks chaired by industrial relations troubleshooter Kieran Mulvey.<\/p>\n 15 per cent<\/p>\n The cap on any future tariffs on pharmaceutical and semiconductor imports imposed by the United States on the European Union. <\/p>\n The deal struck by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen with Trump saw European countries head off the US president\u2019s threats of cripplingly high import taxes on products sold across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n The number of weeks a bitter High Court civil trial involving three shareholders of tech conference giant Web Summit had been scheduled to last before it was struck out.<\/p>\n The case was resolved after talks between the parties concluded with founder Paddy Cosgrave saying he was \u201cdelighted\u201d two of his former friends would leave the company.<\/p>\n Majority shareholder Cosgrave was suing David Kelly, who owned 12 per cent of the business, for alleged breaches of his fiduciary duties as a director of the company.<\/p>\n Mr Cosgrave was, in turn, being sued by Kelly and another shareholder, Daire Hickey, who holds 7 per cent of the shares in Web Summit, for both alleged shareholder oppression and alleged breaches of a profit-sharing agreement.<\/p>\n \u20ac217,087<\/p>\n The salary advertised by the Government for its new housing tsar who will be charged with managing the crisis and increasing supply.<\/p>\n The role was plunged into controversy when the expected appointee, Brendan McDonagh, the chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency, withdrew from consideration. That came after it emerged Fine Gael had not been consulted on the plan to hire McDonagh, who was expected to keep his existing \u20ac430,000 salary.<\/p>\n \u20ac26 billion<\/p>\n The \u201ccolossal\u201d bill the State could soon be facing for missing EU-agreed climate targets, equivalent to a full year of corporate tax receipts or the annual health budget.<\/p>\n A report by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Climate Change Advisory Council provided one of the starkest warnings yet of the potential costs involved in failing to adapt to the climate reality.<\/p>\n It found that the Republic \u2013 on a per capita basis \u2013 had the highest emissions target gap of EU member states, meaning it was the least likely to meet its 2030 target of reducing emissions by 51 per cent on the basis of its current trajectory.<\/p>\n The drop in the State\u2019s corporate tax receipts in May compared to a year earlier as the exchequer collected \u20ac2.5 billion, which was \u20ac1.1 billion less that May 2024.<\/p>\n Downplaying the decline, the Department of Finance attributed it to \u201conce-off factors\u201d which, it said, boosted receipts last year and distorted the year-on-year comparison. No panic though as \u20ac10 billion in corporation tax was received in November, a record for a single month. <\/p>\n 10 per cent<\/p>\n The top percentile of richest households in the Republic holding almost half the wealth, according to Central Bank of Ireland data.<\/p>\n The total net wealth of households here rose to a record \u20ac1.25 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, up \u20ac6.3 billion on the previous quarter. The figures showed that the wealthiest 10 per cent of households held \u20ac645 billion or 48.6 per cent of the total.<\/p>\n This was five times the wealth held by the bottom 50 per cent of households, which stood at \u20ac117.8 billion or 8.9 per cent of the national total.<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/CM27IHT3UBBWBKJCMZYS7K75GA.jpg\")
John Collison, cofounder of Stripe <\/p>\n![\"Samantha](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/RQXYZ3RM6JFJNNPWHT6PMNQJL4.JPG\")
Samantha Humphreys, MSD Ireland. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n![\"Ryanair](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/K7PYMFZD4F37S2HG6JPWONGO7Q.jpg\")
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary. Photograph: Jason Alden\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n![\"Cathal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/W7HFNXPVG5G75KOUQV5FM7UP44.JPG\")
Cathal Friel, Raglan Capital. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n![\"Kenny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/XQMVMO3M5ZFPTP5RY4C53U33IY.JPG\")
Kenny Jacobs of DAA and Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien. Photograph: Alan Betson \u20ac960,000<\/p>\n![\"Ursula](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/YLLYAH5YY27G5P4MLJ6SANOTMI.jpg\")
Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski\/AFP\/Getty Nine<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Z4EMTDG7XZBORBXHBGZR4OVJVU.JPG\")
The Republic is the EU member state least likely to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target. Photograph: Alan Betson 30 per cent<\/p>\n
![\"Storm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/QQY6VSUP2BA5FIZMNCJKMF6LWY.JPG\")
Storm \u00c9owyn wreaked havoc in Ireland in January 2025. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd \u20ac57,000<\/p>\n