The State’s 2030 targets for renewable energy are not realistic due to planning delays and a severe lack of investment in the power grid over the past decade, a senior executive at Bord na Móna has told the Business Post.
John Reilly, head of power generation at the company, said the Government was “deluded” if it believed 80 per cent of the State’s energy could come from renewable sources by 2030 given the structural problems in the sector.
“We’re not executing our renewables strategy well. We’ve too many bottlenecks in the system and we’re simply not able to deliver the infrastructure required. I have to say I think we’re mad if we think we can achieve the 2030 targets from where we are today. I think we’re deluding ourselves.”
Eirgrid climate plan
Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, has cast doubt on Eirgrid’s ability to meet its climate targets by 2030, claiming the semi-State grid operator is underinvesting in the grid and that its policy approach has “critical flaws”, according to the Sunday Times.
The criticisms were made in a letter sent ahead of a February meeting between Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan and Kieran White, the Danish energy giant’s managing director in Ireland. While White said Orsted welcomed Eirgrid’s Shaping Our Electricity Future report, the plan relied too heavily on linking large offshore wind projects along the east and southwest costs to large energy users.
Clearco job losses
Clearco, an international ecommerce funding company, has cut jobs in Ireland in recent weeks despite announcing plans in March to hire an additional 125 employees here, the Sunday Independent reports. It told the newspaper that its timescale for growth will now, in part, depend on the macroeconomic environment.
The Canadian-headquartered company is led by chief executive Michele Romanow, a panellist on Canadian TV’s Dragons’ Den, who travelled to Ireland in March to announce it would add 125 jobs to its 75-strong headcount here. However, the company is since understood to have let go as much as 10 per cent of its Dublin staff.
Klarna users
Swedish payments company Klarna has gained 500,000 active users in Ireland in just six months and now has 800 retailers in the State as official partners, reports the Business Post.
The buy-now-pay-later company, which launched services in the Republic in November 2021, did not say if its Irish unit, which employs eight people, would be affected by a plan to cut 10 per cent of its global workforce. The company, backed by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, is seeking to raise up to a $1 billion in a deal that would represent about a 30 per cent drop in valuation compared to its last funding round.
Inflation risk
Key infrastructure projects could be at risk because of cost overruns on existing public works contracts amid a surge in construction costs, the Business Post reports, citing a warning by the Office of Government Procurement.
The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform recently agreed to share the burden of rapidly rising input costs faced by contractors. Under this inflation framework agreement, the State has agreed to pay 70 per cent of construction cost inflation to safeguard key projects. But the procurement office has warned of the potential impact of inflation on public projects yet to be contracted.
Tax paperwork
At least 10,000 businesses are at risk of being taken off Revenue’s debt warehousing scheme if they do not file their late tax returns within days, according to the Sunday Independent.
Tax officials are issuing final warning notices to businesses that are using the Covid support scheme but have not filed up-to-date paperwork, a condition of accessing the facility. About 10,000 letters have been issued to business owners and their accountants in what is the first tranche of notifications, Revenue confirmed to the newspaper.
