Full coverage: Economy

Paschal Donohoe is a chief architect of the July stimulus package. In an in-depth interview, the finance minister talks about the philosophy behind the package, the challenges facing Irish business and the societal impact of Covid-19.

Changing working and consumption patterns will hit commercial property badly, while the lack of purchasing power for first time buyers will dampen the residential market. I have picked my way through the data, and the leading indicators are not good.

As the debate around flight restrictions continues on technical, legal, economical, and moral grounds, Stephen Kinsella takes a step back to look at the evidence available so far.

Leo Varadkar says the pandemic will cause ‘divisive’ inequality, yet the key policy problem here is not inequality but massive uncertainty. Inequality is a potential outcome of the government’s reaction. If it gets the reaction wrong, the result may be a lost generation of young households.

All disasters interrupt. From stuttering consumption and investment decisions to travel and business plans, any disaster forces a pause in those things. Earthquakes, tsunamis and global pandemics are quite similar in this regard. Covid-19 has stopped us from going to work, from travelling, and the uncertainty it unleashed has caused a collapse in investment.

In my evidence to the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee, I explained that we must consider tax rises to bridge the €30bn deficit and fund a €20bn stimulus. In a crisis, all bets are off, and all avenues of revenue-raising should be considered.

Gavin Duffy maintains that he is a firm capitalist, but that he also believes it is time to change the nature of the relationship between the economy and society. He also believes that crisis will accelerate that change, while also forcing business owners to question the role of many middle managers.

The latest quarterly economic statistics give a partial view of what has happened to the Chinese economy through the Covid-19 crisis – and what is yet to come.

We could easily see a dual or two-speed recovery, where the manufacturing sector gets back to work pretty quickly, but the services sector takes a lot longer to get back on track.

Exclusive interview: Former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet presided over Europe’s monetary response to the previous crisis. As the Covid-19 crisis escalates, he praises the current ECB’s fast initial response – while sticking to his long-held position that the mounting debt will have to be repaid.