James Coghlan

Important article by ⁦@isme_ie⁩ CEO, Neil McDonnell. There is now a strategic imperative to including indigenous enterprise as the 3rd leg of industrial policy.⁦@SimonHarrisTD⁩ ⁦@MichealMartinTD⁩ ⁦⁦@jackfchambers⁩ ⁦@peterburkefg⁩ #SMEAlliance

@davidmcw SME lending €17bn in 2023 vs €62bn in 2011. See CBI report, point 1:

@arthurblake100 Lots of reasons you are right, need to delve in a bit more

Irish banks have become safe deposit boxes. Credit to the economy is drying up, despite increases in deposits.

Insightful piece by Simon Kuper, well worth a read. “Europe’s elite tribe under unprecedented pressure from Russia, China, climate change, AI and Trump. The elite hope to ward off multiple catastrophes by waiting until adversaries act, then responding feebly. “

There is a funded scheme in place the last 20 years. However, the scheme has been beset by difficulties with fresh water mussels & planning (scheme aesthetics, if you don’t mind). The bridge design is also poor as suggested, funnelling flood water that cannot go underneath to go around, causing town-centre flooding on both sides. Hopefully the Accelarating Infrastructure Report recommendations will be actioned quickly to deal with these debilitating infrastructure delays. assets.gov.ie/static/documen…

There's a good reason past generations of town planners avoided building houses and shops on river floodplains. 1 = Apartments 2 = Shops #StormChandra #Wexford #Ireland

Don't blame nature for doing its thing—blame poor town planning.😠 Enniscorthy has experienced significant Slaney River flooding in 1924, 1947, 1965, 2000, 2015, 2018, 2021, and now in 2026 with Storm Chandra, leading to extensive property damage, commercial disruption, and traffic issues. There's a good reason past generations of town planners avoided building houses and shops on river floodplains, which they clearly marked on their historical OS maps. This is stunning aerial footage taken 11 years ago by SkyCam Ireland showing the devastating flooding caused by Storm Frank on 30th December 2015 at Enniscorthy in Wexford, Ireland. #StormChandra #StormFrank #Wexford #Ireland

Interesting analysis of Mark Carney’s speech & it’s potential implications.

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

Re Public Spending, its important that spending is split between Current & Capital a/c, by Region, and historically, how far back can we go? Time for Ireland to start using accruals accounting, like most OECD countries? Re Benefacts, one can only wonder why it was closed down circa 2022, particularly given that CSO found its data extremely helpful? Maybe @albertdolan_ can resurrect it - it’s 2015-21 data from 20k non-profits? irishexaminer.com/news/arid-4090… benefactslegacy.com/data/

Op Ed from this weekends Irish Mail on Sunday 👍🏼 Let me know what you think ✅

@mcmnorris en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c…

I agree with many of the points John Collison makes about the barriers to infrastructure delivery in Ireland but not with his view that rising numbers of state agencies have caused this problem. They are a symptom, not a cause 1/4

@mcmnorris Ireland has neither highest nor lowest public as % of total employees, but it is above average. Before there is any talk of more, let’s 1st optimise ICT. For example, most OECD countries have had digital patient records in their Health Service for years, we’ve just started.

@mcmnorris worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankin…

Collison Bros messaging needs mainstreaming so all will be influenced by vip influencers @collision & @patrickc. The people ask, where has all the money gone…much on gold plated competing quangos leading to inertia. Root & branch reform needed now before we repeat past mistakes!

Excellent piece, well researched, albeit not unknown. However, the Irish Times (& Independent) both have 50-60k circulations & sit behind a pay wall. How to circulate this piece to a much wider audience, particularly young people, can @collison & @ProgressIreland do that?

What is noteworthy is that 89% of the total Co population of 214k in Table 2, P37, being 191k Micro/Small Co’s who are responsible for total employment 47%, total earnings 42%, income tax take 42%, USC take 40%, PRSI take 41%, and VAT take 36%. All this data on said Table 2, P37.

Re John Ihle ⁦@ST__Ireland⁩ business. Revenue’s “Corp Tax ‘24 Payments & ‘23 Returns”, see Table 2, Page 37. Of total 214k Co Tax Returns, 57% returned avg tax liability €-13,523, 32% returned avg €4,944, so 89% of all Co’s returned tax liability<€5k. ⁦@isme_ie⁩

A great start by @albertdolan & hopefully with enhancement, the dataset can show Capital Spend by region/constituency, with supporting business case. Is there not a Private Members Bill going thru the Oireachteas on this, why not put legislative heft behind your work? @isme_ie

@ChasTaylor writes well re Draghi Report & EU27 competitiveness, published 12 months ago (just 10% implemented). Just this week, Ireland produced its own Action Plan on Competitiveness & Productivity. As always, it’s about the implementation! @isme_ie enterprise.gov.ie/en/publication…

UVDL who tasked the Draghi report, now slow-walks its implementation due to significent pre-occupations elsewhere! However, these pre-occupations are more easily navigated by an EU27 strengthened by implementing the Draghi report. @isme_ie