Permanent TSB hires, Ardstone’s Ranelagh zoning battle and the scourge of workplace AI

We have become more used to banks cutting traditional front-line positions than adding them.Permanent TSB, however, is currently in the process of hiring about 200 people for contract roles in its branches and central operations to help manage an expected surge in customers switching to the bank from Ulster Bank as it prepares to leave the Republic. Joe Brennan reports.

Ardstone Capital is threatening Dublin City Council with legal action over a likely zoning mix-up in Ranelagh, reports Barry O'Halloran. Planners had given Ardstone-owned Sandford Living permission to build 667 apartments on land that had belonged to the Jesuit Order of Catholic priests. But the council's draft development plan zones the Ranelagh site Z15, which bans anyone other than an institution from building on it.

The UK Post Office scandalhinged on the company's insistence that the software it was using was infallible. But huge numbers of technology products that promise to use artificial intelligence to manage, coach, score or monitor employees are now on the market, and they are having a huge impact on people's working lives, writes Sarah O'Connor of the Financial Times.

The Central Bank of Ireland isseeking €105 million for the Block R development in Dublin's Spencer Dock, reports Ronald Quinlan. The development, which includes seven floors of office accommodation and three ground-floor retail units, is being brought to market for the second time.

Ardstone Capital threatens legal action over zoning ‘error’ in Ranelagh

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Sinn Féin leader criticises ‘excessive’ number of build-to-rent units in Dublin Arch scheme

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Never mind Big Tech, ‘little tech’ is a danger for workers too

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National debt tops €47,200 for every person in the Republic

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Back in 1946, the late Irene Quinn purchased Ballymascanlon House Hotel, the Co Louth hotel known fondly as "The Ballymac", and its estate for £9,000. It is fair to say that Austrian investor Thomas Röggla's TMR Hotel Collection has paid a little more to secure ownership, bringing to an end the Quinn family's 76-year ownership of the landmark venue, Ronald Quinlan reports.

Also in our Wednesday commercial property coverage, Ronald reports on how the recent opening of Technological University Dublin's Grangegorman campus, combined with the ongoing regeneration of Dublin 7, should help drive the sale of Prussia Street's Park Shopping Centre.

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