May in a lock that the Brexit more and more likely to derail

The wheels had the impression of coming out of the Brexit locomotive this week, heading for the cliff exit next March, which everyone wanted to avoid.

Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, seems increasingly isolated, forced to make significant concessions to hardcore Brexiters, while depending on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party to hang on to key votes of Commons.

This is the meaning of the chaos from Westminster It is increasingly alarming in Dublin and Brussels that the British government can not control its most radical elements and limit the damage after all. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the government would go ahead with plans for a scenario without agreement. "It is not obvious or not obvious that the government in Britain has the majority for any form of Brexit, quite frankly," he said.

The government has agreed to hire 700 additional customs officers and 300 additional staff to check animals and agricultural products, while "significant" investments will be needed to modernize infrastructure in ports and airports.

Brussels has followed suit, calling on Member States to speed up emergency plans. Alarmingly, despite all the unwavering support that the EU has given to the government at the border, anything that could change in case of no agreement.

Varadkar said that such a "disaster scenario" would mean that the "commitments of others" be invoked to avoid a hard boundary. He said that EU officials have provided badurances on this point, but it remains to be seen how this could be done.

The International Monetary Fund warned that a Brexit without a contract could reduce Ireland's economic output by almost 4 percent. in the long term, at an estimated cost of more than 50,000 jobs. The value of Irish exports of goods to Britain fell by 8% this year, while imports are down 6%, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, raising fears that Brexit may already hurt trade .

All this Brexit fate is probably why the finance minister, Paschal Donohoe, said that he would be cautious in spending the October budget despite a seemingly endless flow of money. 39, positive economic indicators.

in 2017, in terms of gross domestic product, according to this week's CSO figures, even though overall growth was reduced to 7.2%, up from 7.8% previously.

After criticizing the Republic's GDP figures, the CSO developed a new measure, called Modified Gross National Income, which strips the activity badociated with multinationals. By this measure, the economy was valued at 181 billion euros.

Despite Donohoe's words, he is expected to broaden his search for consultants to advise on the compensation of the bailout banks, which could pave the way for a return of more generally, in his latest report on the prospects for the year. global economy, the IMF cautioned against the risk of "growing trade tensions" that could "derail the recovery and depress growth prospects in the medium term".

This followed Ibec's criticism of the government's plan to establish a rain fund. The business lobby suggested that the money should instead be set aside to solve the funding crisis in higher education.

Housing Crisis

Despite all the jobs and growth, the housing crisis continues to could become even worse for the government. According to the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, created last year in response to an OECD report suggesting that the Cabinet exercises excessive control over budgetary issues, the housing crisis could have consequences for more long term.

The persistence of high housing costs would eventually erode the Republic's competitiveness as workers demand higher wages.

At least, there seems to be an upswing, with real estate agent Savills predicting a sharp slowdown in rising real estate prices. Home deliveries increased 46% in 2017 and, despite weather-related disruptions, continued in the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 27% from the previous year. last year, senior economist Sean O 'Malley said:

Indeed, real estate builder Glenveagh Properties is in talks to acquire enough land for more than 7,000 homes, according to This Operation has raised 213 million euros through a sale of shares, bringing the value of the company to 1 billion euros.

Technology in the dock

Technology was again at the rendezvous this week.

First, the Airbnb hosting agency was criticized by the European Commission for lack of transparency in the presentation of its awards, and ordered to clean up its act of Here the end of the month of August or coping with coercive measures. 19659002] Then there was the Channel 4 investigation Dispatches which showed trainee moderators at Facebook offices in Dublin that they were told to leave disturbing content online. Among the material was a video of a sobbing toddler being hit and beaten by a man. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the government was prepared to consider imposing large fines on online businesses that do not meet the standards of decency.

Finally, Google has fined 4.3 billion euros to the European Commission for abusing its dominant market stance with its Android mobile operating system. The largest antitrust fine in the EU ever recorded, it accounts for nearly 40 percent of the company 's profits last year.