Ken Tyrrell has been scratching his head. 

A restructuring and insolvency specialist with the accountancy firm PwC, he has maintained a running tracker of corporate insolvencies in recent years. 

Along with his team, he has produced quarterly reports on how many companies are going out of business and what sectors of the economy are struggling most.

Last year, he felt that the insolvency numbers should have gone up. After all, the economy was dealing with inflation, rising interest rates, tariffs and heightened geopolitical uncertainty.

Yet, the number of insolvencies flatlined. 

“Any one of those four things should have led to an increase in insolvencies. But the numbers were remarkably consistent,” Tyrrell told me. 

This is an understatement. 

Based on the PwC data, we should have seen about 1,500 companies entering liquidation, receivership, or examinership last year. Instead, the actual number was 848. Despite all the headwinds, fewer and fewer companies are going out of business. 

“I think it shows the resilience of the domestic economy,” Tyrrell told me. “ We have challenges on competitiveness and on infrastructure, but the underlying economy is strong.”

It is hard to disagree, particularly if you look at the sectoral data. 

Take retail and hospitality – sectors that have been very vocal about their problems.

Retail still tops all sectors for insolvencies, with 151 cases in 2025. However, this marks a 25 per cent decrease from 201 cases recorded in 2024. The downward trend continued throughout 2025, averaging 38 cases per quarter compared to 50 in 2024.

The hospitality industry recorded 141 insolvencies in 2025, slightly below the 154 insolvencies in 2024.

Again, both are trending downwards. 

“There are lots of issues, but the wider economy is doing well. That is seen in the numbers,” Tyrrell says. 

However, he did point to issues in the unemployment rate, which has been rising in recent months.

After all, an increase in unemployment has historically been associated with higher levels of insolvencies; a one per cent rise in the unemployment rate would be expected to result in an additional 245 insolvencies.

“This is the big issue to watch,” he said, noting that there is a significant correlation between the insolvency rate and the number of people who are out of work.

“The number of people unemployed is growing. This will have an effect on insolvencies. This is the number to watch.”

There were a number of other interesting aspects in relation to the PwC data, specifically around restructuring.

The first relates to examinership. 

There were 23 examinerships last year, which is more than double the 11 appointments recorded in 2024 and higher than the 18 in 2023. 

Meanwhile, there was a continued low uptake of Scarp. An examinership process for smaller companies,  something PwC said indicated that the process is failing to meet its objectives. 

There were only 23 Scarp processes commenced in 2025, down from 30 in 2024 and 33 in 2023.

“Since its introduction in 2021, just 108 Scarps have been initiated. By contrast, personal insolvency arrangements (PIAs), introduced in 2012 to assist individuals with debt levels of approximately €3 million, saw substantial early adoption with approximately 2,500 recorded in the first four years, and now average between 1,100 and 1,300 cases per year, highlighting the differential in the use of PIAs compared to Scarps by SMEs,” according to PwC. 

The firm also commented on the doubling in examinership numbers last year: “Examinership typically provides a greater level of court protection while a rescue plan is formulated and, in appropriate cases, can be a stronger alternative to the Scarp process.”

As Tyrell sees it, the strength of the multinational economy is masking problems in the domestic economy. Overall, he remains positive. “The rise in unemployment is a problem, but the fundamentals remain strong,” he told me. 

Yet, given the headwinds, he remains optimistic. “Inflation, interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty, and yet the number of insolvencies is well below what you expect; that says something,” he says.

A similar contradiction appeared in the analysis Thomas conducted of corporation tax figures on Thursday. While 2025 was the year when the world order crumbled and multinationals faced the Trump administration’s assault on free trade, the Exchequer enjoyed an almost linear growth in the tax revenue it collected from them, posting yet another record.

A case in point is Microsoft, which added another billion euro to this bonanza last month. The corporations benefiting most from globalisation should suffer from its setbacks, but they don’t. This is largely thanks to their effective lobbying in Washington, which has ensured that pronouncements from the White House are carefully redesigned to suit the interests of American companies before they take effect. 

Much like insolvency figures, the Irish-taxable profits of multinationals are better than they should be. Nobody knows exactly for how long. 

Elsewhere this week…

From the Taoiseach down, Ireland has been fascinated by Xavier Niel’s French start-up incubator. What is Station F, and can the decentralised Irish ecosystem replicate its success? Thomas had a report from Paris.

The one job title Harry Owen craved was CEO of City AM, the London-based financial newspaper he joined back in its start-up days. The road to the top job was rocky, but he’s finally running a profitable business. He spoke with Alan.

Without flashy gadgetry, Food Village has added predictive software to the recipe of school lunches. Workplaces and international licensing are the next courses on its menu. Rodney had the story.

A year after opening its new Dublin office, Schillings explains the business of reputation management and how the firm reinvented itself to be more than legal advisers.

Mark Raddan, Interpath’s chief executive, and Kieran Wallace, a managing director in its Dublin office, talk exclusively on the sale of a majority stake in the professional services firm which employs 1,000 people including 100 in Ireland.