'As good as gold' is our characterisation of the subject of this month's cover story on Ireland's legal sector, which (page 8) had an extremely strong year in 2025 with employment numbers for solicitors in the table of the Top 20 Corporate Law Firms surging by 6.3% in the year. This is confirmed by the buoyant level of activity at corporate deal making levels across all categories in the 2026 Finance Dublin Deals of the Year Awards, forthcoming in next month's issue.
Also featured is former Taoiseach Enda Kenny's decision to take up the Chair of Ireland for Law, marked at a meeting of the body this month (page 5). He says, "A trusted legal framework is essential to Ireland's global competitiveness. It provides the certainty and expertise necessary to enable investment across our most high-value industries, from finance and technology to life sciences and aviation".
One of the most prominent members of Ireland's legal community lending support to Ireland for Law has been the President of the High Court, Mr Justice David Barniville. His 184 page judgement on the "CD" case is a landmark case in the canon of Irish common law on Ireland's evolving regulatory system for financial services. It is analysed in page 4, and commented on in page 3. This is a serious matter, we say; hopefully it will result in a further fine-tuning of Ireland's financial services regulatory regime, the outcome being better and more enlightened regulation for both the regulated and by the regulators going forward.
This month has also seen the publication of an important analytical report by the Banking & Payments Federation on the design of an SIA which the banking body presented to the Tanaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris. Details of this are in pages 4 and 16. It boosts hopes that in the months that remain before Budget Day (October 6th) that the huge opportunity that exists to kick start Irish retail investment for a new generation of Irish savers and investors can be seized.
The latest issue features the nominations for the Finance Dublin Deals of the Year Awards 2026. Over 250 nominations have been received, previewed in the cover feature. They reflect a host of deals that provide an incredible set of insights into the business and financing activities that are features of the increasingly rich tapestry of Irish economic life.
Given the latest bout of uncertainty from the Middle East war it is just as well that the underlying strength of the Irish economy continues to hold, and hopefully that strength can also reflect positive developments at a European level and worldwide, all of which are themes reflected in the March issue.
Many other important issues of our times are featured in this issue - Ireland's mooted SIA, ETFs, business models in the Irish accountancy sector, the agenda for the Irish Presidency of the EU in H2 2026, excellence in Irish financial services, and corporate taxation developments of note.
The February 2026 issue features an assessment of the geopolitics and financial economics environment that we now all inhabit in the cover story which assesses the premise of Canada's Prime Minister - that we are living not with a transition but with a "rupture" in world geopolitics.
In this assessment of the new world order the issue examines the implications and the opportunities that exist, in five parts: 1) The Rupture; 2) The Financial & Economic Consequences; 3) Where Ireland Inc stands; 4) The opportunity, in economic and political terms; 5) The specific opportunities in the short term - in finance, the national budget, taxation, and for the 'Irish Economic Model'.
There is also a rich menu of content elsewhere in the publication, including insightful book reviews, taxation analysis that does not hold back on questions of much needed examination, a profile of Northern Ireland's cybersecurity industry, and examination of key developments across the financial services industry and Irish finance, such as the new Euronext Access market for SMEs.
In our final issue of 2025 we look forward with positivity to 2026 because many of the (justified) fears around many of the negatives in the geopolitical environment that existed during the year did not come to pass. Critically, the demise of the Irish economic model, much predicted in many quarters, did not happen, and, indeed, we can report that The Economist made Ireland its second best 'Economy of the Year', in the OECD area for 2025.
Complementing this has been the prominent role played by the Irish Government in crafting an innovative, and probably game changing financing package worth EUR90 billion for Ukraine, finalised in the early morning hours of Friday 19th December. A "Deal of the Year", in the sphere of European Union Public Finance, perhaps?
The December cover story consists of seven related stories, all portraying key aspects of one of the 'jewels in the crown' of Ireland's financial services industry - aviation finance and aircraft leasing. The headline on the cover of this issue says that "Aviation finance flies high in Ireland in 2025, and the outlook is bright", and the reasons why are analysed in detail.
Ireland's funds industry is the focus of this month's cover feature with the conjunction of events that has seen the Irish Government publish a visionary roadmap for the sector, 'Funds Sector 2030' and the European Commission's launch of its Savings & Investment Union, augurs well for the industry, whose net assets are now in excess of €5 trillion. Already the SIU initiative has resulted in more progress than its predecessor 'Capital Markets Union', and has prompted the new Minister for Finance, Simon Harris already to reference it in one of his first public statements by saying that Ireland supports 'a multi-centre of excellence' model in relation to the SIU.
Surveyed in the report are how the SIU and the aspirations of Funds Sector 2030 are coming together, and, as detailed in the feature articles and Roundtable of thought leaders in The Finance Dublin Funds Monitor how Ireland's investment funds landscape is evolving and adapting to meet the new opportunities in high growth and high potential areas including ETFs, Private Markets and loan origination.
The new Tanaiste in Finance, while not unprecedented, creates a possibly distracting dual mandate at a time of concern about the sustainability of the Irish economic model. We look at Paschal Donohoe's loss to public service in Ireland, and what it might mean, and the opportunities the new man at Finance, Simon Harris, has to make a long-lasting positive impact in what is expected be a short-lived time at the helm before he is scheduled to take up the top job in 2027.
The 2025 Finance Dublin Accountancy Survey sees the combined fee income of the Top 20 firms reach a new milestone as the 2025 Managing Partners' Forum shows an unanimous positivity across the board, despite the prevailing uncertainty around global economics and markets. This is reflected in a softening in annual fee growth in this latest year, to 9.9%. Although few say so, this uncertainty necessarily is reflected in discipline at the fee charging level. Also featuring centrally in the issue is Budget 2026, and its relevance, particularly for the financial services industry itself.
