Fuel prices have been steadily on the rise in Ireland since a dip in late 2008. As one of the single largest expenses people are faced with, running a car is becoming more and more challenging. The team at AIRO has compiled an interactive dataset which allows us to analyse the performance of Irish prices against our international counterparts from 29 other countries.

The table allows you to select and compare individual countries by month since January 2008 and also provides an overview, ranking countries by fuel price from 2008 to 2013.

With the impending transfer of statutory planning functions from central government to new councils in Northern Ireland in 2015 under the Review of Public Administration (RPA) and significant changes being made to the planning system in the Republic of Ireland, this aptly timed seminar will provide plenty of opportunity for lively open debate and discussion on the important – and common – planning decisions facing both jurisdictions.

During the course of this one-day event, themes that will be discussed include:

The latest update from Eurostat profiles house prices across the EU27 using an index score. It provides an interesting insight into the Irish housing market at a different geographical level. In recent months much talk has been made of shifting patterns within Irish residential property markets with price increases even being reported in parts of Dublin.

The CSO have released Garda Crime statistics for the period between 2004 and 2012 at regional & divisional level. The data reflects a decline in crime figures as a whole across most categories with the exceptions being; Homicide, Sexual offences, Burglary and Fraud, deception and related offences.

AIRO has taken planning application data from 2007 to 2012 and generated interactive bubble charts using updated visualisation software. These charts offer a clear and simple method of comparing data across different areas and categories. The larger and darker bubbles indicate the higher values with the smaller lighter bubbles the lower values.

MEP Emer Costello last night launched an exhibition of Dublin as a 'Smart, Connected and Sustainable City' at the European Parliament in Brussels.
The exhibition, opened by European Commissioner for Innovation and Research, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, comes ahead of Horizon 2020, an €80bn EU research and innovation programme due to begin next year.

The first Residential Property Price index of 2013 reveals a continued slide in property prices nationally and a glimmer of hope for house prices in Dublin. Overall prices nationally for all property types fell by 3.3% in the year to January 2013. While prices continue to fall the rate of decline has slowed. In the year to January 2011 to 2012 prices overall fell by 17.1%. Comparatively speaking then the overall situation appears more positive.

The latest results (Q3 2012 ) from the Eurostat EU House Price Index show that house prices in the EU have declined by 1.9% from the same quarter in 2011.

Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest annual increases in house prices in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+8.4%), Luxembourg (+7.1%) and Finland (+2.1%), and the largest falls in Spain (-15.2%), Ireland (-9.6%), the Netherlands (-8.7%) and Portugal (-7.7%).

The highest quarterly increases in the third quarter of 2012 were recorded in Estonia (+2.6%), Latvia (+2.3%), the Unite