Staff Insights
Staff Insights aim to build understanding of key economic and financial topics related to our Research Agenda. This staff-developed series draws on theory and real-world evidence to provide accessible, non-technical insights to a broad and varied audience.
Volume 2026
Number 12, 2026: A Scenario Analysis of Financing Options for Energy Retrofits Among Irish Mortgage Holders
Authors: James Carroll, Derek Lambert, Paul Lyons, Andrew O’Callaghan, Joel Franklin, Daire McCoy and Bryan Coyne
Retrofitting homes to a Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2 or higher generates net lifetime savings for most households, particularly for those with a starting BER of C3 or lower. Improved home energy efficiency enhances household financial resilience to climate transition risk and energy price volatility.
Read Staff Insight Number 12, Volume 2026
Number 11, 2026: Watt’s it Worth? Residential Energy Efficiency Premiums
Authors: Hannah Ortega-McCormack, James Carroll, Tom Gillespie, and Ronan C. Lyons
More energy efficient listed properties have an average energy efficiency premium of 1.6% between 2015 and 2024 relative to an inefficient counterpart, with a decrease in the premium from 1.9% in 2015 to 1.3% in 2024. The change in premium over time differs by market segment, with lower-priced properties facing a decreasing premium over the ten years and higher-priced properties experiencing an increasing premium.
Read Staff Insight Number 11, Volume 2026
Number 10, 2026: Nowcasting
Euro Area Inflation
Authors: Joe
Marlow and Dilan Aydin Yakut
This
Staff Insight presents a weekly nowcasting toolkit for the euro area inflation
by leveraging high-frequency financial and commodity data alongside traditional
macroeconomic indicators. The model provides policymakers with timely inflation
estimates when official data releases lag, as demonstrated by its accurate
capture of the March 2026 energy-driven inflation spike.
Read Staff Insight Number 10, Volume 2026
Number 9, 2026: An Update on the Size and Resilience of the Irish GDP LDI Fund cohort
Authors: Raoul Fruzza and Philip King
Macroprudential
measures have been effective at maintaining the resilience, in terms of both
solvency and liquidity, of the Irish GBP LDI fund cohort. While the cohort has
declined in size from its peak, it continues to play a significant role in the
UK gilt market.
Read Staff Insight Number 9, Volume 2026
Number 8, 2026: Monitoring Financial Stability Risks Using Uncertainty Indicators
Authors: Michael
Wosser and Emil Bandoni
No
single uncertainty indicator captures all financial stability risks. A
geopolitical risk indicator demonstrates strong near-term predictive power for
banking crises, while economic policy uncertainty spikes signal one-year-ahead
output growth risks including through rapid transmission to Irish equities and
consumer confidence.
Read Staff Insight Number 8, Volume 2026
Number 7, 2026: Tracing energy shocks through the Irish supply chain: A new monitoring framework
Authors: Katie Bourke and Jonathan Rice
This Staff Insight presents a new framework for monitoring price pressures along the supply chain, helping to identify in advance which consumer categories are likely to experience price movements and the mechanisms driving them, with a particular focus on imported energy shocks.
Read Staff Insight Number 7, Volume 2026
Number 6, 2026: Climate and the Geography of Multinationals
Authors: Sante Carbone, Galina Hale, and Roland Beck
Manufacturing multinational enterprises respond to tight climate policymaking, reallocating foreign-direct investment away from ambitious jurisdictions. Irish foreign investment composition makes the country less exposed to this reallocation.
Read Staff Insight Number 6, Volume 2026
Number 5, 2026: Flood Risk, Interest Rates and Collateral Requirements: Evidence from Irish Firms
Authors: James Carroll, Michael Mahony, Bruno Morando, Cormac O’Sullivan, and Saeed Shahabi Ahangarkolaee
Loans to borrowers in current flood risk areas face an interest rate premium of roughly 7 to 13 basis points (corresponding to a 3 per cent increase over the average interest rate charged).
Read Staff Insight Number 5, Volume 2026
Number 4, 2026: Household Exposure to Flooding
Authors: Paul Kilgarriff and Tamanna Adhikari
Households with a high likelihood of flooding (a 10% annual probability) face a 96% cumulative probability of experiencing at least one flood event over the term of the mortgage.
Read Staff Insight Number 4, Volume 2026
Number 3, 2026: Availability and use of Liquidity Management Tools in Irish-domiciled Investment Funds
Authors: Brian Gallagher and Bríd White
Survey evidence finds most Irish-domiciled investment funds have price-based liquidity management tools available, however, a lower number of funds used these tools, although usage increases when markets are stressed. The research also reveals application across fund types differs, with many funds not incorporating a specific market impact estimate.
Read Staff Insight Number 3, Volume 2026
Number 2, 2026: Attitudes to the Digital Euro in Ireland: Survey Evidence from the Investigation Phase
Authors: Maria Elena Filippin and Michele Pelli
Survey evidence from the investigation phase reveals that willingness to adopt the digital euro in Ireland is associated with trust in the euro and institutions. Irish respondents show an awareness below the euro area average and moderate enthusiasm for adoption, with both varying modestly across demographic groups.
Read Staff Insight Number 2, Volume 2026
Number 1, 2026: Fiscal Support during a Period of High Inflation: A Distributional Perspective
Authors: Laura Boyd & Tara McIndoe-Calder
In this Staff Insight, we report the results of a microsimulation exercise to explore the impact of the fiscal supports implemented by the Government, over 2022 to 2024, in response to the 2022 inflation surge.
Read Staff Insight Number 1, Volume 2026
Volume 2025
Number 12, 2025: Stabilising Sentiment: Macroprudential Policy and House Price Expectations in Ireland
Authors: Fergal McCann and Luca Riva
Macroprudential policies act as a "guardrail" that shifts forward-looking beliefs and contributes to macro-financial stability beyond the direct effects of these policies on the volume and riskiness of lending.
Read Staff Insight Number 12, Volume 2025
Number 11, 2025: Budgetary Policy and the Irish Income Tax System Since 2011
Author: David Cronin
Budgetary policy since the economic crisis of the late 2000s and early 2010s has not undermined income tax receipts, an important source of Exchequer tax revenue. In particular, average tax rates at higher incomes, from where a large share of income tax is collected, have seen little change.
Read Staff Insight Number 11, Volume 2025
Number 10, 2025: Household Resilience to Current Income and Cost-of-Living Shocks
Authors: Anuj Pratap Singh and Fang Yao
Household balance sheets have strengthened since 2018 and are projected to remain resilient under a baseline scenario for the domestic economy.
Read Staff Insight Number 10, Volume 2025
Number 9, 2025: What Next for the Dublin Office Vacancy Rate? A Framework to Examine Short-run Scenarios
Authors: Gerard Kennedy and Cillian O’Gorman
Notwithstanding some recent signs of stabilisation, Dublin’s office market has been amongst the hardest hit across Europe in terms of decrease in capital values, fall-off in investment and the rise in vacancy rates since the start of the decade.
Read Staff Insight Number 9, Volume 2025
Number 8, 2025: SME Profitability in an Adverse Macroeconomic Environment
Authors: Michael Mahony and Tamanna Adhikari
Irish SMEs are expected to continue posting positive and stable profit margins under the central scenario for the domestic economy.
Read Staff Insight Number 8, Volume 2025
Number 7, 2025: Who Clicks "Pay Later"? Financial Vulnerability and Buy Now Pay Later Usage
Authors: Anu Jose and Jane Kelly
As flexible, short-term, often interest-free Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) products become increasingly popular, this Insight reveals that individuals displaying certain characteristics of financial vulnerability are using BNPL to a greater extent, more frequently and simultaneously across multiple providers.
Read Staff Insight Number 7, Volume 2025
Number 6, 2025: The Impact of Borrower Based Measures: an international comparison
Authors: Laura Moretti and Luca Riva
An examination of how the adoption of borrower-based measures reduces house price growth, house-price-to-income growth, and growth in household debt over GDP.
Read Staff Insight Number 6, Volume 2025
Number 5, 2025: Mortgage Measures and Rental Yields in Ireland
Authors: Fang Yao, Michele Pelli, Sameer Shaikh
Analysis of Mortgage Measures and Rental Yields in Ireland and the impact of the measures introduced in 2015, including clear and strong effects on house prices.
Read Staff Insight Number 5, Volume 2025
Number 4, 2025: Personal Income Tax and Fiscal Drag Across The Distribution in Ireland
Authors: Laura Boyd and Tara McIndoe-Calder
Fiscal drag varies across the distribution and has the potential to more adversely impact lower income taxpayers relative to higher income taxpayers.
Read Staff Insight Number 4, Volume 2025
Number 3, 2025: The Drivers of SME Investment in Ireland
Authors: Michael Mahony and Cian O'Neill
While many Irish SMEs report making investments, the euro value of these investments is small. This pattern is explained by firms being satisfied with their current size and investment rates, rather than by a lack of external finance.
Read Staff Insight Number 3, Volume 2025
Number 2, 2025: The Sectoral Impacts of Tariffs and Trade Fragmentation in the Irish Economy
Authors: Elizaveta Lukmanova and Michael O’Grady
Ireland’s high-value export sectors are deeply embedded in global value chains, relying heavily on intermediates sourced from abroad to produce export content, leaving them highly exposed to tariffs.
Read Staff Insight Number 2, Volume 2025
Number 1, 2025: Access or Competition? Non-bank lending to Irish Non-Financial Corporates
Authors: Barra McCarthy and Carlos Navarro Ramírez
Whether providing access to finance for SMEs or competition to traditional banks, the role of non-bank lenders has implications for financial stability.
Read Staff Insight Number 1, Volume 2025
Economic Letters and Financial Stability Notes Archive
Staff Insights replaced Economic Letters and Financial Stability Notes. An archive of those pieces is available at the links below.
Our Economic Letters series, were written for a general readership. The series provided economic and financial analysis and insight into policy-related issues, data or new indicators.
- Financial Stability Notes archive
Financial Stability Notes were authored by Central Bank of Ireland staff. The aim of the series was to contribute to understanding the risks and vulnerabilities facing the Irish and European financial system.