In this issue: the 239 Nominations for the 2023 annual Finance Dublin Deals of the Year Awards 2023.

The deals, nominated by the dealmakers themselves in large part, encompassing over 200 finance industry service providers from across the globe, provide the most comprehensive picture available of the most significant deals across the Finance ecosystem in Ireland in the calendar year 2022. They are detailed in our in depth analysis, starting on Page 8 of the E-paper, and, will go forward for consideration for the final awards, which will be profiled in detail in the 2023 Awards issue.

While, as a sector, the Financial Services sector led the way in numbers of nominations, the engagement of financing in housing, development, green finance and industrial sectors such as agribusiness, healthcare, pharma, and engineering are evident across the board in the 239 nominations.

The Deals of the Year Awards are not the only major feature of this month's issue. They are detailed in the Contents page on page 3 of the E-Paper, including: our analysis of the global turmoil in banking the past month following the collapse of SVB Bank. The important EU Sandbox initiative, welcomed by an Irish Central Bank spokesman in a statement on the matter to Finance Dublin in the issue. Also: Insurance, Senior professional recruitment opportunities, developing Funds industry stories, including Waystone's C-suite management sweep, the huge Russell funds business transfer to Carne, and, the Irish Tax MonitorRoundtable Panel's cutting edge analysis of Irish corporation taxation matters, including the latest on the likely CT top up tax mechanisms.

The 2023 edition of the Finance Dublin Yearbook, the annual print & E paper snapshot of Ireland's financial services centre - including the world's 3rd largest funds centre, the 6th largest financial services exporter, and with our updates of the significant developments in the profiles of the leading 500 financial services companies and bodies in Ireland is published.

The 2023 edition features new companies, legal and professional firms, representative bodies, Government, semi state, and legal bodies reflecting the broadening and deepening of the centre in the past year, its people and organisations.

The Yearbook's 2023 Review & Outlook provides Finance Dublin's annual overview of the 'state of the centre' - reflecting a year of exceptional progress as the centre deepened and strengthened, despite the headwinds caused primarily by the inevitable consequences of the battle against inflation and monetary tightening in global financial and capital markets. This is covered in a series of analytical articles in the publication, featured here.

The Yearbook also contains the 2023 Finance Dublin Yearbook's Professional Services Guide, with its Who's Who of professionally qualified advisers and practitioners in the jurisdiction, offering expertise in the broad sectors of finance and financial services.

The full E-Paper edition can be accessed by subscribers HERE. (If you need a password to access any of the above links, or need assistance to access them please email us).

The cover feature this month is our interview with the new Minister of State for Financial Services Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. She sat down with the editor, Ken O'Brien, and in it she outlines an ambitious and wide ranging agenda that sees marketing of international financial services and the 'Ireland for Law' project as a top priority.

In the area of housing finance, Niall Corrigan's review from EY is a good overview of structural developments in the Irish mortgage market - but there are other areas that can deliver tangible benefits, and in shorter timeframes. Private sector pensions is one of those areas, and John Lyons writes (page 12) on innovative reforms that can be incorporated in the crafting of a potentially revolutionary change in security affecting the entire private workforce.

As the new year dawns, the January issue highlights the factors that indicate that the Irish financial services sector faces a potential future that is better than at any time over the past 35 years. These opportunities exist at both domestic financial services level, as detailed on page 4 of this month's issue, and for Ireland's IFS industry. The latter is the focus in the January cover feature - the UK's FS industry agenda for the City, unveiled in December 2022 by UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

The Finance Dublin Yearbook 2023 (forthcoming) will detail the stories and people of the centre's big successes in the past year and provide a detailed overview of its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, benchmarked against its competitors. The January issue previews some of those developments, such as Unicredit's return with a tie up with Azimuth that echoes its first foray into Ireland, 26 years ago with its establishment of Pioneer. SMBC's confirmation as No 2 aircraft lessor globally, by fleet size is another example.

Also in aviation leasing developments, the role of the Irish courts in insurance resolutions of the seizure of aircraft by the State of Russia shows Ireland's growing stature in commercial disputes, analysed on p7 of this month's Epaper. The 'Ireland for Law' agenda will be at the forefront of Finance Dublin's coverage again in 2023, and the implications, alongside the issues raised in January's cover feature relating to UK developments will be tracked.

Also in this month's issue: Corporation taxation, now confirmed as the biggest tax head in the 2022 Exchequer returns, saw Pillar 2 get the go-ahead in December (feature); the pulse of the economy as the new year starts, and detailed analysis of sustainable finance, and the challenges arising for Ireland in contributing creative and innovative solutions as a leading green finance centre.

The past year's trends are surveyed in our cover story. It has been a turbulent year, but also in many ways a landmark year. Those landmarks raise hopes about several features of the near term future for Ireland, business, the economy, and the financial services sector, both domestic and international.

The economic backdrop is benign. It indicates that from a growth and pure financial point of view Ireland has totally got it right. In it, we point to "a hugely significant factor, accounting for, in 2022 alone, a decline in the absolute size of the national debt of 790 basis points. This follows a 660 basis point decline in 2021, and 140 in 2020, the peak year of the pandemic". This indicates that a potentially viable and sustainable future lies ahead for the Republic of Ireland - that relatively is more attractive indeed than any other coutry in the continent of Europe as the new year dawns.

Leading edge thinking is evident through the rest of the publication, in our features, and 'This Month' articles, as well as in the December 2022 Irish Tax Monitor, where we reference the benefits of a move towards a territorial tax system, and examine latest developments on the BEPS front, including its implications for the insurance industry.

There are factors that give grounds for optimism, and in the November 2022 issue we present them not least to provide some balance to the picture as 2023 comes into view. Economic crisis has been the order of the day in Ireland's neighbouring island, and we comment on developments arising from the replacement of the British Prime Minister in our editorial this month, looking behind the headlines at two more fundamental issues that remain embedded at the heart of Irish and British politics, and economics.

These concern Brexit, and the, associated, issue of the Northern Ireland Protocol. There are ideas floated there, in regard to Brexit, down the road for Britain, and the governance of Northern Ireland, which we would commend for discussion.

Invest NI's Regional Director - Ireland, Jenny Santiago Young writes there that "the companies operating in risk and compliance in Northern Ireland are a valuable asset to Ireland. They can help the Irish funds industry meet increased regulatory requirements and continue its impressive growth and expanding remit". The investment funds industry is also prominent in other areas not least in the cutting edge contributions of the thought leaders that write in the November issue on issues at the forefront of the asset management industry's current concerns, in issue No 8 of the Finance Dublin Funds Monitor. and, for cutting edge thinking on corporate tax matters see the Roundtable in this month's: Irish Tax Monitor.

In the October issue of Finance Dublin we mark 35 years of Finance Dublin's publication this year with the launch of a new service for subscribers that provides a continuous digital archive going back to our very first publication, FINANCE Magazine, in 1987. It completes a project which has involved the photographing and indexing of over 15,000 pages of the publication, our annual yearbooks, going back to the first edition in 1992, and the component articles and images.

The issue also contains a rich menu of insights, ranging from the assessments of our Roundtable contributors from Deloitte, BDO and Maples Group in the Irish Tax Monitor, Ireland's insurance industry, the funding market as well as in this month's editorial (below) where we quote John F. Kennedy to remind us that we are in a war situation, given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and that we can count ourselves lucky to an extent that the Irish economy is in good shape, given the wise tax and trade policies pursued by successive Irish Governments.