China's foreign trade contracted at the fastest rate since 2009 last month.
Exports during February were 25.4% lower than 12 months ago - this compared to a 11.2% drop in January.
During January the IMF lowered its global trade forecast for 2016 and 2017 by more than 0.5%, citing slowdowns in China, Brazil and the Middle East as its main concerns.
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The Bank of England is preparing to provide extra funds to avoid an economic shock if voters decide to leave the EU in June.
Governor, Mark Carney will address MPs in Westminister today to discuss the implications of the UK leaving the EU.
The British central bank will open its lending facility on three extra days surrounding the vote as a precautionary measure incase UK banks experience a credit crunch.
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Genable Technologies, a former Trinity College campus incubator company and which specialises in gene therapy to address a particular form of inherited blindness has been sold to the US biopharma group, Spark Therapeutics.
The is deal is valued at more than $15m - $6m in cash and the balance in Spark Therapeutics shares.
Genable Technologies, whose principals including professors Jane Farrar and Peter Humphries have been working on genetic forms of blindness for up to 20 years, will continue to be based in Ireland.
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The ESRI has discovered no real appetite among older people living in our cities to downsize to a cheaper home in rural Ireland.
The new research was carried out on 8,000 people over the age of 50.
The ESRI was trying to establish if incentives should be offered to encourage older people to trade down.
