Press Up pulls sale; insurance fraud; GPO moves; and broadband questions

Hailed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as the "biggest investment in rural Ireland ever", the arrival of the €3 billion National Broadband Plan was signed yesterday. Some 300 towns and villages across Ireland are to get high-speed internet hubs while they await the arrival of the network. Eoin Burke-Kennedy has information on the hubs.

And in a column today, Eoin asks did the Government really have to spend €3 billion on rural broadband, a price tag that works out at roughly €6,000 per household?

Irish hospitality group Press Up Entertainment, which is owned by Paddy McKillen jnr and other investors, has abandoned a plan to raise up to €50 million through the disposal of a 45 per cent stake in its business to investors. Ronald Quinlan has the details.

Irish society's growing acceptance and normalisation of insurance fraud is encouraging fake and exaggerated claims and providing "an income supplement to the morally challenged", according to the head of claims at the State's largest public sector insurer. Joe Brennan reports.

Northern Irish salaries rising at faster rate than rest of UK

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OECD digital tax plans will not work, French council warns

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US retail sales bounce back from seven-month low

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State ‘outlier’ in Europe for absence of seasonal work-permit scheme

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In a fresh court filing, the lawyer for one-time property developer Sean Dunne is asking the court in his US bankruptcy case to reject the trustee's attempt to block a decision on granting a new trial, in part because Mr Dunne is "indigent".

Electricity prices could rise as demand from data centres grows and the Republic shifts from fuels such as coal and peat to renewables, analysts say. Credit ratings agency Moodys also calculates that total all-Ireland electricity demand will hit 44 terra watt hours, enough to power more than 40 million homes, by 2022. Barry O'Halloran reports.

Finally, in our commercial property coverage, Ronald Quinlan reports on a plan by An Post that could see the former Clerys department store on O'Connell Street becoming its new headquarters as it relocates from the GPO.