Full coverage: government

Investing billions in a new city quarter is always going to be hard. Just getting the government lined up it is a big job in itself.

If we have learned one thing from the two decades it took to build 72 homes on one Dublin site, it is that the public bodies involved in housing delivery must move from box-ticking to joined-up thinking.

The profits of multinationals have become the second-largest source of Exchequer funding and the latest Government forecast is that the weight of corporation tax will peak this year, but “windfall” receipts remain unpredictable.

RTÉ has appointed three new journalists to report on previously ignored global issues, the latest to receive backing from the Department of Foreign Affairs, and Green Party ministers have allocated funding to broadcasts about climate change. Personal experience shows the limits of this model.

The latest edition of the Government’s climate plan marks a step change towards the decarbonisation of Ireland’s economy, but still lacks a clear narrative on expectations from business. Yet we can start to pull it together from threads in the hefty document’s various chapters.

Having raised expectations with a sugar-coated Climate Action Plan last year, Eamon Ryan and Charlie McConalogue are faced with the hard reality of carbon budgeting figures. It could be make-or-break time for the coalition.

The Government's new strategy for rural Ireland shows a rare grasp of the deep implications of remote working. The challenge lies in its implementation – and, crucially, in the right timing for the roll-out of proposed policies.

Last month, the Minister for Agriculture was burning the midnight oil in EU talks worth €10bn to Ireland. Next month, his industry is facing Brexit chaos. Yet Charlie McConalogue is at his most combative when discussing the lack of transparency in the beef trade.

Much delayed legislation introduced by the Government on Wednesday will apply to Ireland the carbon budgeting world standard developed by the UK since 2008. It may not ban petrol cars as promised, but its ambition is much bigger: regulate the collaboration between scientific experts and politicians in solving their greatest challenge for the next 30 years.

Nine months after its signature, the contract between the Government and Granahan McCourt’s companies to deliver broadband to every building in rural Ireland has been published. Or at least some of it has.