Business Today Newsletter

Border power play; Shelbourne’s room rates; and advertising to modern Irish households

The best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

Farmers are being offered payments of up to €100,000 to allow high voltage pylons on their land. Photograph: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Dominic Coyle's face
Dominic Coyle
Fri Nov 3 2023 - 07:21

Landowners in counties Meath, Cavan and Monaghan are being offered €50,000 for each pylon they allow on their land as national grid operator EirGrid looks to build a new high volt electricity line, or interconnector, between the Republic and the North. Further compensation for overhead power lines will bring the payments closer to €100,000 for each landowner, mostly farmers. Barry O’Halloran has the detail.

Barry also writes that Europa Oil & Gas is seeking a statement of support from the Government to develop a gas reservoir close to the Corrib field that could piggyback on that field’s infrastructure and extend Ireland’s access to its own fuel source.

Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel saw its average daily room rate jump to €426 at the end of September from €410 last year, driving revenues at the five-star up by almost one-fifth, according to its US owner, Kennedy Wilson. Ian Curran has the figures.

Irish brands must adapt their advertising to the structure of modern Irish households to stay relevant to their customers, a research study by Dublin creative agency Folk Wunderman Thompson has found. Laura Slattery writes the “traditional” family of mother, father and children now accounts for just over a third of Irish households.

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John Burns casts an eye over topics including the new Web Summit’s conundrum with the Ditch; Ireland’s new corporate enforcer denying his office is the “Irish FBI”; where now for Ryanair’s departing social media chief; Dervla McKay jumping buses from Aircoach to Go-Ahead; and Irish activity on X since Elon Musk’s takeover.

The Revenue Commissioners have lost out on some €74 million of tax debt warehoused during the pandemic as 716 businesses that availed of the scheme have since become insolvent. Ellen O’Regan reports.

Profits at celebrity chef Neven Maguire’s restaurant business fell 90 per cent last year, but the cooking school run alongside the business fared better with profits rising by over a quarter, writes Gordon Deegan.

Dunnes Stores has opened a store in the Dundrum Town Centre, occupying the former Penneys unit on the second floor and offering a range of homewares and clothing.

Renewables specialist Mainstream plans to cut almost a third of its cost base and focus on pipeline assets that can deliver a return in the near future after racking up more than €1.2 billion of pretax losses since the start of last year, writes Joe Brennan.

Joe also reports on Central Bank figures showing the net wealth of Irish households rose by €6 billion in the second quarter of the year to a record €1.07 trillion, driven by an increase in financial investments even as the value of housing assets declined.

Ellen O’Regan visits Iceland which is now marketing itself as a “digital suburb of Dublin” in bid to attract data centre investments, complete with a new subsea cable that links the country with Ireland, allowing data transfers.

It comes as Lumcloon Energy, a project development company based in Tullamore, Co Offaly, signed a deal this week with one of South Korea’s biggest construction engineering companies to build Europe’s first data centre to run on fuel cell. Denis Staunton reports.

The High Court has told the liquidators of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) to clarify some of their allegations against former Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) boss Michael Fingleton in the face of challenges by his wife and son who are now managing the defence of the former Irish Nationwide boss’s defence.

John FitzGerald argues that continuing to drive the economy to supply export markets at a time when we do not have the resources to provide basic housing and health for people here is building up economic problems for the future.

And in our Business Interview, Gourmet Food Parlour founder Lorraine Heskin talks to Ian Curran about coming home from New York in the middle of the Celtic Tiger and setting up the business, as she opens three new outlets in department store, Arnotts.

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