Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne said the Occupied Territories Bill 'is certainly not going to be implemented this year'. Photograph: Georg Hochmuth/APA/AFP via Getty ImagesPlanned curbs on trade with Israeli settlements will be limited strictly to goods, a Minister has said. Thomas Byrne, Minister of State for European Affairs and Defence, told Reuters that the Occupied Territories Bill is limited to the import of goods and it would not become law this year. Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien said, in reaction, to Mr Byrne’s comments on the Occupied Territories Bill that Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee is to bring forward an update to Cabinet. MEP Barry Andrews urged Dublin to go ahead with its occupied territories Bill.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) has been asked to conduct a 'regulatory assessment' on the issue. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish TimesAn assessment of taxi booking service licensing in Ireland has been requested by the Minister for Transport in the wake of driver protests over Uber’s new fixed price fare plan. Last month, Uber announced it was launching a fixed-price taxi service in Ireland. On Sunday, Taxi Drivers Ireland confirmed it was suspending further escalation in anticipation of Government engagement. The spokeswoman said the committee supported the regulatory model and acknowledged the important work of taxi drivers.

Photograph: Getty Images/iStockPhotoNew data centres will only be able to connect to Ireland’s electricity grid if they also generate and supply power to homes and businesses, the regulator that oversees the energy industry has ruled. The highly anticipated decision follows the regulator’s review of the grid connection policy for large energy users, namely data centres. In February, the CRU published draft measures setting out new proposals to address increased electricity demand from new data centres. They are also now required to “develop and publish an engagement and connection process for data centre connection applicants”. “Their construction can double the cost of building a data centre,” said DII.

People who had never sought charity before were among more than 3,000 who queued for tickets for Christmas food vouchers at the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin on Friday morning. People, including those with children, began queuing for Christmas food vouchers from the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin from before 4am. And the bags are getting smaller so you have to buy more.”Large queues for food vouchers formed before 4am. Br Kevin Kiernan said it was one of the biggest demands he has seen for Christmas food vouchers at the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin. Year-round it provides 1,000 hot meals a day, six days a week, as well as weekly food parcels and infant and baby supplies.

Older homeowners whose children have moved on now have access to bridging finance to encourage them to trade down. To quote the long-time Ronseal advertising slogan, bridging finance does exactly what is says on the tin – it provides a bridge to cover a gap in funding. This is not purely a property product: bridging finance can be useful in pretty much any area of commerce. If you had found your ideal home but had not yet managed to sell your own, you could tap the banks for bridging finance to span the gap. Both your existing home and the one you are using the bridging finance to purchase will act as security on the borrowings.

While RTÉ workers and viewers are forced to pay the price for poor administration, Forbes has eluded accountability. Forbes has never explained why the doomed show was not brought to the RTÉ board for final approval. The Brennan Report states there are “several examples of the former Director General not providing RTÉ’s board and others with information”. They matter to RTÉ viewers who should not be subjected to the same episodes of Cheap Irish Homes, Scannal and Room to Improve on a loop. They matter to democracy, when the absence of a dedicated security correspondent arguably undermines RTÉ’s public service while hostile drones and ships are skulking in Irish territory.

Piping water from the Shannon to Dublin has been discussed for almost 20 years but the idea continues to attract controversy. Photograph: Alan Betson Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish TimesUisce Éireann is to lodge a planning application next week for a 170km pipeline to bring water from the river Shannon to Dublin and surrounding counties. “The growing water supply deficit and lack of supply resilience in the eastern and midlands region is simply not sustainable,” she said. More than a third of the 1.7 billion litres of drinking water Uisce Éireann pipes to homes and businesses each day is lost through leaks. Uisce Éireann said it was also proposing a multimillion euro community benefit scheme to support communities affected by the construction.

Wall Street portfolio manager Michael Green set the cat among the pigeons recently by claiming the new poverty line for a family of four in the US was $140,000. Photograph: Brian Kaiser/BloombergWall Street portfolio manager Michael Green set the cat among the pigeons recently by claiming the new poverty line for a family of four in the United States was $140,000 (€119,000) a year. “We have been told, implicitly, that a family earning $80,000 is doing fine − safely above poverty, solidly middle class, perhaps comfortable,” Green writes. Instead of commanding a third of household income, they now command a half. “To reach the median household income of $80,000, most families require two earners,” he says.

It accounted for 0.73 per cent of the 3.2 per cent rate recorded last month. And apparently these relate directly to higher food prices. Food inflation remains elevated in Ireland with prices rising by 4.2 per cent in the 12 months to November. Higher food prices reflect the lagged effect of higher energy prices. It’s probably too early to say if elevated food prices here are evidence of this.

Drug testing has found MDMA products ranging from 0mg to more than 300mg in Ireland this year. HSE drug-checking, Ireland’s only service analysing substances submitted for harm-reduction purposes, found MDMA products ranging from 0mg to more than 300mg this year. The HSE is warning of high-strength MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, in circulation this Christmas. “MDMA has changed, and higher strength carries higher risk ... one pill does not mean one dose,” said Nicki Killeen, HSE emerging drug trends manager. A study earlier this year found Ireland’s young people are the second-biggest users of MDMA.

Bulgaria faces a fresh wave of political turmoil after street protests over rampant corruption led to the resignation of the prime minister just weeks before the country joins the euro. “We will be a strong opposition,” Mr Borissov told his party leadership in a live Facebook stream on Thursday. Bulgaria's prime minister Rossen Jeliazkov delivers a speech following his government resignation at the parliament in Sofia. Photograph: Dimitar Kyosemarliev/AFP/Getty ImagesThe president has sought to tap into popular discontent with Mr Peevski and Mr Borissov, praising protesters for standing up to the “oligarchy”. Mr Radev has indicated several times he may enter parliamentary politics.

Container traffic in Dublin Port: A sudden slowdown in demand for Irish exports linked to changes in US trade policy or a global recession would have a “severe impact” on the economy here, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has warned. Get the latest business news and commentary from our expert business team in your inbox every weekday morningA sudden slowdown in demand for Irish exports linked to changes in US trade policy or a global recession would have a “severe impact” on the economy here, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has warned. Bus company Go-Ahead Ireland plans to hire 400 workers after winning a contract for 65 bus routes around Dublin. The deal comes as the Government has introduced a number of initiatives to support apartment building following a slump in multi-unit construction in recent years. Green’s number, contained in a provocative post on Substack, was criticised as ridiculous by statisticians and poverty campaigners who picked holes in his calculations.

Everything was already structured into chapters and reading lists, after all, and he merely had to sit down and write it. What he saw left and right of the road spoke to him like poetry pregnant with symbolism and substance. There was an abandoned church with a wall missing but the wooden cross on the roof still standing straight. Sagebrush plain that ran unbroken until the hills on the horizon, except for the road he was on. Nils Röper has been awarded The Moth Nature Writing Prize 2025, for Lost Range, an excerpt from his novel with the same title, judged anonymously by The Guardian country diarist Mark Cocker.

A 51-year-old former Navan councillor has been ordered to pay €50,000 damages after falsely claiming a Sinn Féin councillor had threatened to arrange a punishment beating. Eddie Fennessy, Sinn Féin councillor for Meath County Council, took legal action against former independent councillor Wayne Forde, of Parnell Park, Navan, at Trim Circuit Court. In making the award against Mr Forde, Judge Mary O’Malley Costello said the case was “at the highest level of defamation”. The judge made an order directing Mr Forde to pay €50,000 damages to Mr Fennessy for defaming him. She also made an order restraining Mr Forde from defaming or disparaging Mr Fennessy in any way whatsoever in the future.

For instance, what would happen if a planeload or two of Russian paratroopers landed at Shannon and took over the airport? Simon Harris made a determined effort earlier this year to get a significant increase in defence spending, but the original target of €3 billion was cut in half by the department. While strict supervision of public spending is necessary, our current Exchequer surpluses mean there is no excuse for not giving defence the priority it deserves. The EU and most of its member states are now engaged in a dramatic escalation of defence spending. Defence will probably be the biggest item on the EU agenda during the Irish presidency in the second half of 2026.