The cost-of-living crisis dominated the news agenda for the past two years, so it was of little surprise that the State’s responses to ameliorate this would interest most of our readers. With energy prices rocketing and seemingly the cost of everything else not far behind it meant that whatever the Government did to tackle this would garner a huge amount of interest, and so it transpired with Budget 2024
1) Clocking it with a massive 334,237 views was our “Budget 2024 Main Points” article, which did exactly what it said on the tin. Minister for Finance Michael McGrath and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe outlined a multibillion package of spending increases, once-off payments and tax cuts which included a tax package worth around €800 per person, a €12 weekly increase to welfare and pension payments, and mortgage interest rate tax relief.
The Government promised a further 25 per cent reduction in the cost of childcare, but this would not kick in until September of 2024. Meanwhile, there would be a double child benefit payment of €280 per child, which would be paid before Christmas. It was literally a something-for-everybody-in-the-audience budget and, we can no doubt assume, had nothing to so with the possibility 2024 could be an election year.
2) Our second most read of the year was the liveblog on budget day which kept our readers up to date with all the latest developments, the Opposition’s views, expert analysis, and reaction from the winners and losers on the day. It garnered a healthy 142,412 page views.
3) Ben Dunne was never far away from the headlines during his eventful life and his death was no different. Under the headline “Ben Dunne: Tributes paid to businessman and kidnap victim, dead at 74″ it outlined how the former Dunnes Stores chief executive in 1981, on his way to visit a company store in Newry, was kidnapped by the IRA. Reports at the time suggested IR£1.5 million was paid in a ransom and that it was arranged by Charles Haughey who was said to have asked businessman Patrick Gallagher to contribute money. However, Mr Dunne denied these reports later saying “Charlie Haughey and Patrick Gallagher had nothing to do with the ransom being paid whatsoever, in my opinion, and I think I would have an idea if they did had”.
In 1992, Mr Dunne was arrested for cocaine possession and soliciting while on a golfing holiday in Florida, which was eventually to lead to his departure from the company, with his sister, Margaret Heffernan, taking over the reins.
4) Clocking in at number four in our most read articles of 2023 was a knotty question for Dominic Coyle’s Q&A column. Headlined Tax means our daughter will not be able to keep the family home she inherits it dealt with the worries of a reader with an only child and whether she would be able to continue to live on in the family home after her parents death as it was now worth €800,000 and beyond her means to pay the required inheritance tax.
5) Our fifth story on the list was another tricky question for Dominic, under the headline My mother-in-law claimed a widow’s pension for first husband while married to her second. Will we have to repay? it dealt with how a reader’s mother-in-law had been claiming a widow’s pension for many years despite being married to her second husband. He had recently found out she had been claiming a widow’s pension from her first ex-husband’s employer while married to her second husband. His understanding was that a married or divorced woman was not entitled to a widow’s pension. He was wondering whether the family of the woman would have to repay the amount she received from the semistate body from any inheritance they may receive on her death.
6) Our sixth most read was yet another question for Dominic. A reader, under the headline The property I was due to inherit was sold. Where does that leave me? asked what happens when you and others have been left a house in a will (to be sold), but the house had already been sold by the person who made the will, and the will was never changed? What happens to the money left from the remainder of the sale? Should it have been divided among the family members who were named in the will as benefiting from the sale of the house, or would the fact that the house was already sold make this portion of the will invalid?
7) Staying with the property then, our seventh most read story of the year was a court report by Ellen O’Riordan, headlined Couple had to pay €310,000 for backing out of Foxrock house purchase after signing, court hears. It reported that a couple who backed out of their intended purchase of a Dublin property after signing the contract in 2006 ended up having to pay the vendors some €310,000. Terry and Janet Byrne forfeited their reduced deposit of €75,000 and were then pursued by the vendors for the financial difference between their offer of €2.1 million and the lesser amount the Foxrock house went on to sell for.
The legal proceedings against them were settled in a deal involving the Byrnes paying €237,865 to the vendors.
The Byrnes, of Ballinteer Road, Dundrum, claimed the solicitors who acted for them in the proposed sale advised them before the signing of the contracts in October 2006 that their total exposure if the sale did not complete was the loss of their deposit.
8) Conor Pope, whose Pricewatch article headlined Anatomy of a Revolut scam: Peter watched helplessly as thousands drained from his account outlined how clever fraudsters duped reader Peter into handing over his banking details. He then went on to watch in real-time as his Revolut account was drained of thousands of euros, despite having declined the initial purchase and alerted the online bank to what was going on.
9) Our ninth-most-read, by Ciara O’Brien and Jack Power, concerned then Web Summit chief executive Paddy Cosgrave and the consequences of his comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Headlined Google and Meta pull out of Web Summit over Cosgrave’s Israel-Hamas comments it told us that Google and Facebook-owner Meta had become the latest tech giants to withdraw from 2023′s Web Summit. Google was one of the event’s sponsors, while Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president of global affairs, was due to speak at the Lisbon event. The departures had been preceded by Intel and Siemens.
10) Rounding off this year’s most-read list is the cautionary tale outlining there is no such thing as free money. Headlined Bank of Ireland warns credit ratings could be affected by withdrawals made during IT outage it told us that a technology glitch at Bank of Ireland allowed customers to transfer up to €1,000 from their account even if they did not have the funds. While banks typically limit the amount that can be withdrawn from an ATM to €500, many people were able to transfer at least twice that sum between their Bank of Ireland and Revolut accounts. They were then able to use their Revolut cards to withdraw the money from Bank of Ireland ATMs. However, the bank warned people that such activity could have a negative effect on people’s credit ratings and the funds would be debited.
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