In short

Today's other stories in brief

Intel Ireland head wins tech industry award

Intel Ireland general manager Jim O'Hara was recognised as the technology industry's person of the year at an awards ceremony in Dublin last night.

Mr O'Hara was instrumental in establishing Intel's manufacturing facilities in Ireland.

Other winners at the annual ICT Excellence Awards were: Digiweb for company of the year; Derek Monahan of DHL for professional of the year; and Perlico, which won best company to work for. The awards were held as part of the Technology4Business exhibition, which continues at the RDS today.

Kenmare mine begins production

Mining at Kenmare Resources' titanium mine in Mozambique has begun, as it announced a 60 per cent increase in the mine's potential yesterday.

It said it expected to achieve annual production levels of 800,000 tonnes of ilmenite, 21,000 tonnes of rutile and 56,000 tonnes of zircon. The company's share price rose 7.35 per cent yesterday, closing at €0.73.

Carbery profits down €700,000

Weaker cheese markets and an "extremely challenging year in terms of energy costs" were cited by the Carbery Group when releasing figures showing a drop in profits and turnover in 2006. Pretax profits were €4.4 million, down €700,000 on the previous year. Turnover was €176.5 million, a decrease of 2.5 per cent.

Sage opens Dublin localisation centre

UK software company Sage has officially opened its global localisation centre in Dublin and announced an additional €400,000 investment in its Dublin data hosting centre.

The localisation centre supports Sage's business in Europe, the US, Asia, South Africa and Australia. It currently employs 11 staff but this is set to grow to 40.

Bord Gáis chief to retire in July

Bord Gáis chief executive Gerry Walsh will retire at the end of July, the company announced yesterday. Mr Walsh, who joined the group in 1985, was appointed chief executive in August 2000.

Bord Gáis said a process was in place to recruit a new chief executive.