Excess baggage at the O'Leary household

Current Account: For some years now, Ryanair's Michael O'Leary has been waging a war against checked luggage. Witness the 15kg limit, and the extra charges levied on anything that goes beyond that, as well as Michael's desire for checked bags to be phased out together.

The allowance does create a bit of a gender split: men think it's perfectly adequate, while women (not to be sexist about it) tend to have a little more trouble squeezing two weeks of wardrobe into the equivalent of 15 bags of sugar.

Even the O'Leary household has had its share of luggage-related discussions of late. When asked by a brave shareholder at yesterday's agm whether or not marriage had changed his view on the 15kg allowance, Michael admitted that he had been the victim of his wife's "excess luggage policy" when the couple most recently flew. He also acknowledged that the expected arrival of the first junior O'Leary in a few months' times would make the luggage problem even worse. As for the man himself, he can apparently get away with 2 or 3kg of baggage for a holiday. Perhaps he should include packing tips along with those ticket reservation e-mails.

Ryanair could be left far from new terminal

What's the longest-running story in Irish business? Jurys Doyle? Attempts to unbundle the local loop in the telecoms arena? The sale of Aer Lingus?

Well, arguably it's the attempt to build new terminal capacity at Dublin Airport. Remember, the idea of substantially expanding Dublin Airport has been mooted for over a decade now.

This week the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) tried to advance the project a little further by announcing an actual site and a price tag for construction and design. The DAA also showed journalists a scale model of what the new terminal might look like.

A closer inspection of this model is not likely to provide much cheer for Michael O'Leary.

According to the model, at least, all wide-bodied long-haul aircraft will be parked on stands at or near the new terminal. Of course, Ryanair doesn't have any long-haul aircraft. So, after all the countroversy, spin and counter spin, could Michael O'Leary end up stuck in the old terminal building?

He currently calls this building the "black hole of Calcutta", but one wonders what it might be like in say four or five years. By then Ryanair's main Irish rival, Aer Lingus, is likely to be enjoying the rather swankier surroundings of the second terminal. Oh dear.

Banking on savings

Ireland's pension fund managers were on hand for something of a rarity this week - and no it wasn't Seamus Brennan warning of the possibility of mandatory pensions. Rather it was the legendary straight-talking of former finance minister Charlie McCreevy, who addressed the Irish Association of Pension Funds' benefits conference yesterday.

The man who introduced the phenomenally successful special savings incentive accounts (SSIAs) in 2001 made a point of noting the efforts of several financial institutions in encouraging a similar approach to marketing pensions - an area where the Government has struggled to get its message across.

"When you look at who were the biggest beneficiaries of the SSIAs after the individual account-holders, it was of course the financial institutions themselves," he reminded delegates before suggesting that they might be more proactive themselves in finding ways of persuading customers to keep savings rather than relying on the State to line their coffers.

Now that's cutting to the point...

The Jurys network

Its win-win over at Jurys Doyle these days. The stock market circular relating to the sale of its Ballsbridge site discloses that the company's solicitors, Vincent & Beatty, will get paid €850,000 (not including VAT) for their advice to the company. The document then notes that the managing partner of Vincent & Beatty is Jurys director Walter Beatty, whose family has a stake of around 10 per cent in the company.

The circular also discloses that the company's property advisers, CB Richard Ellis Gunne, will be pocketing a similar sum in respect of their services. The chairman of CB Richard Ellis Gunne, Peter Malone, is another Jury's director.