Energia delivers €40m dividend; science museum explodes for government; and Aer Lingus cuts flights

Power supplier Energia has delivered a €40 million dividend for its private equity owners with its profits from wholesale electricity prices soaring even as its supply business slumped to an operating loss, writes Joe Brennan. At the end of the day, profits jumped 3 per cent to €200.1 million on an ebitda basis after a volatile year for energy utilities.

Plans to build a national science museum for children were first unveiled at a projected cost of €37 million back in 2007. They’ve been mired in dispute in recent years, writes Eoin Buke-Kennedy, but the consortium put in place to run the operation has now won a landmark legal dispute in arbitration that could well force the Government to build the museum at Earlsfort Terrace at a considerably higher price.

As if illness and industrial disputes have not been disruptive enough, Aer Lingus has been dragged into a row at Heathrow Airport over just how many passengers it can handle. To meet a new cap imposed by the London airport, the Irish airline has decided to cull one of its flights to Shannon from Heathrow each day this week.

The long-running dispute over Apple’s tax affairs in Ireland are likely to come to a head this autumn, when government officials expect the Court of Justice of the European Court (ECJ) to hold hearings on the issue. Joe Brennan reports.

IDA Ireland’s latest Labour Market Pulse report brings little cheer to the post-Covid flexible work generation. It finds that more than four-fifths of job postings on LinkedIn do not offer candidates the ability to work from home. That indicates little change from the pre-pandemic position according to Eurostat figures.

Ken Foxe writes that Irish Water has paid out more than €10.1 million in performance-related pay to its staff over the past two years, with close to 800 staff sharing average payments of around €19,000.

In his column, Eoin Burke-Kennedy argues that Ireland’s stellar financial blowout in 2008 and the follow-up austerity project have left us with a country boasting an uncompetitive, semi-nationalised banking system charging borrowers an interest rate premium over our European colleagues alongside what appears to be a multibillion euro headache involving most apartments built up to 2013 and a housing crisis.

In our Opinion piece, John Thornhill argues that Twitter might well win against wannaway suitor Elon Musk in court over his aborted €43.8 billion bid for the business ... and still lose.

Finally, as we come to terms with sticky summer nights, Leslie Hook warns against our growing reliance on air conditioning. Global air conditioning demand will triple by 2050, she writes, requiring additional electricity capacity equivalent to the current capacity of the US, EU and Japan combined ...and no good news for our carbon emissions targets.

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