A round-up of today's other stories in brief.

Redundancies increase 15% in April

The number of redundancies grew in April compared to March, but remains lower than earlier in the year. A total of 1,838 redundancies were registered last month according to figures released by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment yesterday.

The April figure represents an increase of 15 per cent over the March total of 1,598, but remains lower than the average of just over 2,000 during January and February.

April's deterioration was dominated by increased job losses in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, according to a breakdown of the figures.

Sky Ireland adds 52,000 subscribers

Sky Ireland added 52,000 new subscribers to its digital channel in the year to the end of March, bringing the total number to 407,000.

This is the first time the channel has exceeded 400,000 in Ireland, which Sky attributed to the continued introduction of innovations.

Broadband data to be released

Broadband service providers will need to start marketing the benefits of high-speed internet connections rather than the technology itself if broadband usage in Ireland and Europe is to increase, according to new European research.

Beacon, an EU funded-project which includes DCU as one of the four research partners, will release its initial findings this morning at the ICT Expo event in Dublin's RDS.

The event is expected to attract 4,000-5,000 to the RDS over the next two days.

Credit card debt 'not widespread'

Credit card debt is not widespread in the Republic with the majority of cardholders adopting a responsible approach to spending on their cards, according to new research by Ipsos MORI.

Just over a quarter of credit cardholders say they are in debt to a credit card company. This group accounts for less than one in 10 adults and has not grown over the past three years, the company said.

A fifth of cardholders, around 200,000 people, are responsible for driving the reported increases in spend and transaction volumes, however they are no more likely to be accumulating debt than those who use their card less frequently, Ipsos MORI said.

Deutsche Bank profits rise 55%

Deutsche Bank became an undisputed leading global bank yesterday after trouncing expectations for first-quarter performance, with record profits of £1.7 billion (€2.5 billion), up 55 per cent, and a 40 per cent pre-tax return on equity.

Hailing the result as "outstanding", Josef Ackermann, chief executive, said that he was interested in cementing Deutsche's strength through acquisition. - (Financial Times service)