CSO cautious on GDP, Dublin gets dearer and Guinness top of the pops

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from ‘The Irish Times’ business desk

Guinness: the most valuable Irish brand according to a new report Photograph: iStock

The State may have grown faster than the rest of Europe last year, but the Central Statistics Office and others have cautioned against reading too much into the latest numbers. Eoin Burke-Kennedy has the details in Business This Week.

He also reports on a leading investment manager's belief that an "unprecedented" global financial experiment has helped to create a bubble in Irish property.

Chiming with this is a new study from the Economist Intelligence Unit that finds Dublin has overtaken London as a more expensive city in cost-of-living terms. Áine McMahon discovers why.

Mark Paul has the story on a new investment by Fine Grain Property, the Irish-Singaporean vehicle that has said it would spend €150 million on Irish commercial property.

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In his economics column this week, John FitzGerald looks closely at the likely impact of Brexit on the Irish beef industry, warning of a bleak outlook.

Joe Brennan meanwhile considers what happened to cause the woes that came home to roost at Greencore this week and what the company might do to escape them.

There is good news for Guinness today in what must already be a bumper weekend for the stout: it has again topped the list of Ireland's most valuable brands, coming ahead of AIB and Penneys-owner Primark in the latest rankings compiled by a London group.

And still on St Patrick's Day, Mark Paul's Caveat wonders how Leo Varadkar is getting on with Donald Trump and what that might mean for the wider economy as we prepare for our annual day-long celebration of greenery.

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Úna McCaffrey

Úna McCaffrey

Úna McCaffrey is an Assistant Business Editor at The Irish Times