The May miracle that injects €44.6m into creaking economy 

Help! Sunday communion

Wanted: smart new bank that gives us the credit we're due 

David McWilliams

A FRIEND of mine, a small business owner, is typical of many thousands of cash-strapped entrepreneurs in Ireland at the moment.

What Germany's football success tells us about the eurozone crisis 

David McWilliams

LAST night we saw not just a football match between two great teams, but two very different cultural, social and economic models battling for supremacy. On one hand we had the frugal but brilliant Germans of Borussia Dortmund, on the other was the free-spending (and also brilliant) Real Madrid. This was a battle between the local, academy-based Dortmund, and the international, chequebook-driven, Real.

As the salt pillars of austerity crumble there will be enormous opportunities 

David McWilliams

THE forces of austerity are in retreat all around Europe and the world. Let's make no mistake about what this means. The word 'austerity' has come to mean many things, but austerity is shorthand for the European policy of lumbering citizens with the debts of the financial markets and contending that the resulting increase in the national debts is the cause of the problem, rather than the consequence.

We must find jobs for our young before they become unemployable 

DID you know that divorce is contagious? A recent US study found that divorce can spread through social networks, like a virus, passing among friends, siblings, even people you work with.