Art before profit for Bewley's group

CurrentAccount: Bewley's has signalled the completion of its withdrawal from the café business in Dublin with the sale of the leases on its Roasters cafés at the Jervis and Blanchardstown shopping centres.

The irony is that these outlets appear to be doing well, in marked contrast to the dismal performance of the Bewley's cafés that closed late last year.

As new restaurants thrive in the old Bewley's building on Grafton Street, the demise of Dublin's oldest cafés in the middle of a spending boom seems more and more like aopportunity squandered. Not the power of its brand nor the fact that the café lifestyle is seriously in vogue was enough to reverse the rot that set in when a bunch of rival cafés emerged to challenge Bewley's dominance of the coffee scene.

While its rivals boomed, Bewley's blamed the smoking ban for its woes.

The truth is more banal: customers were turned off because Bewley's was simply not up to the job of providing an efficient, comfortable café service. The success of Café Bar Deli in the same space proves that the business is there if customers' needs are met.

Students - and those who lost their jobs at Bewley's - might also ponder on the wisdom of buying artwork from the boss when a core business unit is going under. According to the latest accounts for the Campbell Bewley Group Ltd, the group spent €143,161 buying artwork by Patrick Campbell in 2002 and 2003. This seems an indulgence, whatever way one looks at it.

EU to appeal to mobile firms' sense of shame

Three million Irish mobile phone users will have read the news this week that the European Commission is to get tough on "roaming" with a wry grin on their faces. Roaming charges - the fees that mobile firms charge users for using phones abroad - are a major bugbear for travellers and tourists within the EU, with some calls costing up to €5 a minute.

Surely then, the commission's pronouncement to tackle the problem at the height of the holiday season would be welcome? It sure would be if punters hadn't heard it all several times before.

Multiple investigations into roaming over the past five years by the competition and IT directorates in Brussels have led to a lot of "bureaucratic bluster" but very little action. Vodafone and O2 have been found to have abused their dominant position in Britain on roaming however, as yet, no fines have been levied.This week the commission said it would set up a special website outlining all EU roaming fees in an attempt to shame mobile providers to reduce prices. The multibillion euro mobile phone industry must be quaking in its boots!

ESB chairman refuses to bite his tongue

Who says there are no forthright characters left in Irish business anymore?

Ok, most people leading big companies in Ireland these days are very much "on message" and their public relations handlers make sure they don't deviate from the prepared script when they appear in public.

That is why its such a joy to see ESB chairman Tadhg O'Donoghue taking to the rostrum every year to announce the company's annual results. O'Donoghue, a former partner with PwC, is every PR executive's nightmare. When he comes before the cameras the prepared script is treated like a mortal enemy and this year was no exception.

While ESB chief executive Padraig McManus refused to speculate on what price increases might be in store for consumers, O'Donoghue was happy to let the cat out of the bag.

He also had time to have a swipe at other companies in the market (Viridian), the unions (for their unhelpful approach on pensions) and ESB itself (for its poor return on capital employed). And that was just over a half-hour period. He rounded off this brave performance by informing everyone that connection charges for new homes were going to double.

As the event drew to a close, the journalists were lapping it up, the consumer groups were heading for the exits and the ESB press department were ringing the Samaritans.