Ireland issued its first new bonds since September 2010.  They were offered to existing bondholders, who held government bonds which were due for payment.  The new bonds are repayable in three years time.  The total value of the issue was €3.5 billion at a rate of 5.2%.  This is positive news for Ireland as it shows that investors are willing to hold Irish bonds.  Ireland is the first of the three countries (Ireland, Greece and Portugal) to re-issue bonds with this level of maturity following IMF-EU bailouts.

I took part in an interview with Kevin Purcell from UTV radio today in which I discuss the latest meeting of EU Finance Ministers and the restructuring of the Greek Debt.  The interview will be broadcast on news shows on a number of local radio stations.

I gave an interview today with UTV radio on the most recent visit by the IMF/EU relating to Ireland's recent budget and the progress being made on reducing the government deficit and achieving the debt targets previously established.  The interview will feature on a number of local radio stations around the country.

Below is the presentation given by myself and Dr. Geraldine Ryan at the Department of Economic's Winter Research Symposium yesterday in University College Cork.  The paper is on eco-innovation in Ireland.

The below is a photo of myself and my co-author Dr. Eoin O'Leary receiving the award for the best established paper at the Sustainable Learning Networks Ireland and Wales conference in Waterford Institute of Technology.  The award was presented by Professor Mike Danson and was sponsored by the Regional Studies Association.

From left to right: Eoin O'Leary, Professor Mike Danson and Justin Doran

Below is the presentation myself and my co-author Dr. Eoin O'Leary gave at the 2nd Annual International Conference  on Networking, Learning and Entrepreneurship in Waterford Institute of Technology.  The paper which we submitted was awarded the best established research paper at the conference.

I have completed an interview for the Cork News newspaper.  It focuses on the current Euro crisis and the upcoming budget.  The article is available on-line and can be accessed here.

Residential property prices continue to fall with the latest figures from the CSO showing no sign of a slowdown in the decline.  Figure 1 shows the continual decline in residential property prices from January 2005 to October 2011.  

When we break this down by region (the CSO only provides data on Dublin and Outside Dublin) we can see that residential prices in Dublin have declined more than those in the rest of the country.  This may reflect an excess supply of these properties, constructed during the boom.

The BBC news website has an interesting interactive web application which allows users to quickly view which EU countries owe money to each other and to countries outside Europe.  It provides a quick glance at the extent of the Irish debt crisis and the countries to which we owe money.  The application is available here.

Seasonally adjusted exports increased by 2% in September while imports decreased by 5%.  This can be observed in Figure 1, which shows Irish exports continuing to grow with a slight dip in imports in recent months.  

The fall in imports coupled with the increasing imports has resulted in a widening of the trade balance as shown in Figure 2.