On Sunday The Money Programme (BBC 2, 7.30 p.m.) focuses on Britain's once-booming North Sea oil industry in the light of the current crisis. The world is now awash with oil, a situation made worse by the widespread economic slowdown. Oil giants are merging, slashing costs and shedding thousands of staff across the globe. And there are signs that oil companies in Britain are set to shift investment elsewhere.
This week, Streetwise (Monday, RTE 1, 8.05 p.m.) includes a report on the influence of advertising, from the 1998 Advertising Awards in Kinsale, and looks at the Irish breakfast, which now, alas, seems to consist of more foreign bacon than home produced.
Reporter Pat Butler visits Kilkee in Leargas, (Tuesday RTE 1, 7.30 p.m.) where hundreds of new houses have been built under the Seaside Resort Renewal Scheme, and where last year its famous beach had to be closed because of sewage effluent. The scheme has been running since 1995, providing large tax incentives for investors, and is due to end this year. The result is that holiday developments have mushroomed around our coasts arousing a lot of controversy, particularly in the west.
In Ear to the Ground (Tuesday, RTE 1, 8.30 p.m.) Ronan Clarke reports on the success of the Shannon Regional Co-Op, a company producing organic beef and lamb and thriving as demand increases.
(Network 2, 10.15 p.m.) includes a report on the difficulties young people have in getting insurance.
The series profiling business conflicts, Blood on the Carpet, continues on Wednesday (BBC 2, 9.50 p.m.) with the battle between US ice-cream makers HaagenDazs and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, two bearded hippies who started their own ice-cream company. Haagen-Dazs tried to freeze the intrepid two out of the market, but the underdogs took on the giant and won and now have their own multimillion pound organisation - and problems with unwanted competition.
