Ireland

DUBLIN, April 4 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said here on Thursday that her country will stand together with the other European Union (EU) member states and do everything they can to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Merkel made this remark at a press conference after meeting with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Thursday afternoon.

LISBON, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Foreign investment in housing in the Urban Rehabilitation Area (ARU) in Lisbon skyrocketed to 676 million euros in 2018, accounting for 28 percent of the total of 2.39 billion euros invested, according to a Portuguese real estate company, quoted by Portuguese Lusa News Agency on Wednesday.

DUBLIN, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The direct shipping of goods between Ireland and the continental Europe has witnessed a marked increase as more companies choose to bypass British ports amid Brexit fears, local media RTE reported on Friday.

The report quoted local port authorities as saying that currently two-and-a-half times more goods move on direct routes from Dublin than via the UK landbridge and that number is expected to increase.

The UK landbridge refers to Britain as a bridge linking Ireland and the European mainland over the sea.

DUBLIN, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Ireland has become a globally recognized centre for specialist international financial services (IFS) with over 200 foreign-owned IFS companies having established their presence in the country, said an Irish minister here on Wednesday.

DUBLIN, March 16 (Xinhua) -- The number of the applications for Irish passports has witnessed a sharp increase since this year, reported local media RTE on Saturday.

The report, quoting the Irish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney, said that over 230,000 applications for Irish passports had been received to date this year.

The figure represented a 30 percent increase over the same period last year, said Simon Coveney.

19 Feb 2019; AFP: Ireland's deputy prime minister expressed annoyance on Monday at Britain's continued failure to ratify a deal on its orderly withdrawal from the European Union.

"Of course there's frustration," Simon Coveney, who is also Dublin's foreign minister, told reporters after more talks in Brussels with EU colleagues.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May thinks she might be able to get a deal signed with EU leaders in November past the British parliament if it is reworded.

25 Jan 2019; AFP: A new industrial revolution is under way on the outskirts of Dublin.

Fortunes are being made in clusters of anonymous warehouses housing vast data centres.

"Data is the new oil, definitely," said Brian Roe, commercial director of Servecentric, a data centre company.

Roe is a new breed of prospector, presiding over one node in a network of 48 data centres in Ireland.

LONDON (AP) — Michael Higgins handily won a second term as Ireland’s president Saturday, capturing every constituency in an election that was marked by low turnout.

The 77-year-old Higgins received 55.8 percent of the vote in Friday’s vote, which was contested by six candidates. The vote share was just below the record 56.3 percent received by longtime independence leader Eamon de Valera in a two-way contest in 1959.

The Irish Independent newspaper estimated that turnout was less than 45 percent, the lowest ever for a presidential election.

DUBLIN, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Irish police on Friday launched a 24-hour nation-wide operation to crack down on speeding to mark the country's National Slow Down Day.

The operation, which kicked off at 7:00 a.m. Friday morning, is aimed at reducing the number of speed-related collisions on the Irish roads.

The operation consists of high visibility speed enforcement over 1,000 enforcement zones across the country as well as the delivery of road safety messages to motorists through the use of the national, local and social media, said the police.

DUBLIN, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The 30th European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) was opened by the Irish President Michael D. Higgins here on Saturday.

A total of 139 middle school students from 38 countries and regions have participated in the event which runs from Sept. 14 to 19, including a day for setting up their exhibition booths by participants.