There has been a significant increase in the number of insolvencies during the first quarter of the year, with 223 recorded by PwC Ireland – up by over a third on the same period in 2023.
On the back of World Consumer Rights Day last week, I was confronted by lots of questions about everything from returning dodgy goods to getting airline refunds.
Living in a relatively newly wealthy country means our history of investing in the financial markets is brief, compared to that of investors in more mature economies such as the US and the UK.
Q My wife and I live in north Mayo, and have three children in their teens. We struggled to help our eldest child, who is 19, find accommodation when she started college in Galway last month. She was commuting for the first couple of weeks before she eventually found digs. I’m worried our other children will face the same problems when they go to college. Should we buy an apartment for them in Galway and then rent it out when they graduate? We’ve paid off our mortgage and maxed out our pension contributions. We keep hearing landlords are leaving the rental market so are worried that buying might be a poor investment. What do you think?