Varadkar followers pour scorn on his ‘right track’ tweet

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar could probably barely contain himself when he saw the headline on his phone last Tuesday. “More Irish emigrants returning than leaving for first time since 2009,” it read.

The article had only been up on The Irish Times website for 11 minutes when he tweeted a link to it, declaring: "9 years after crash and the pain of forced emigration, more Irish citizens now coming home than moving abroad. We're on the right track. But there's more to do."

It’s fair to say not everyone tweeting comments underneath shared his optimism. The first, a returned emigrant, said she was back living with her parents. “You need a new track,” she said. The next, in the same boat, told Varadkar: “Right track my arse.”

In fairness to the Taoiseach, however, it was a good news story. The figures, which would be published by the Central Statistics Office later that morning, showed 28,400 Irish emigrants moved back in the year to April, up 1,000 on the previous 12 months.

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The numbers emigrating dropped 8.1 per cent, to 28,300, resulting in a net inward migration total of about 100 people. Even the dreaded “brain drain” showed signs of being in reverse, with 49,200 immigrants with a third-level qualification arriving.

Everything looks to be going so well, but there remain some worried murmurings that it could all yet come crashing down on our heads. For now though, at least according to credit ratings firm DBRS, we should be okay.

DBRS said the economy is not overheating yet, but it suggested keeping a close eye on wages, home prices and consumer inflation for signals of a fresh “boom-bust dynamic” a decade after the financial crash.

The ratings agency did say “certain indicators may even suggest that it is overheating” but pointed to the key metric of inflation which “remains low”, running at an annual rate of 0.8 per cent in July.

DBRS also pointed to “moderate wage growth”. Figures this week from the Central Statistics Office showed average weekly earnings climbed 3.3 per cent during the second quarter of the 2018 compared with the same period last year.

Of course, all this means there will be a clamouring for a splurge in October’s budget. The National Recruitment Federation predictably called on the Government to ease the tax burden for middle-income earners, while economist Jim Power called for prudence.

In case anyone needed reminding where we've come from, The Irish Times published details of a report by a former comptroller and auditor general which found serious failings and professional incompetence on the part of Anglo Irish Bank's auditors EY in the run-up to the failed bank's nationalisation in early 2009.

A difficult week for Denis O’Brien

Media and telecoms businessman Denis O’Brien had a difficult week.

Out in the Caribbean, his phone company Digicel first had its creditworthiness lowered deeper into "junk status" by debt ratings firm Fitch amid concerns over how it will refinance billions of dollars of bonds.

The company’s chief executive later signalled it might take advantage by buying some of them on the cheap, while the company is also set to sell more wireless communications towers – this time in the south Pacific region – to lower its debt pile of $6.7 billion (€5.8 billion).

The value of the bonds had by that stage dropped further on the back of news that chief financial officer Ray Leclercq is to leave the company at the end of next month to “pursue other interests”.

Meanwhile, at Independent News and Media, where O’Brien is the major shareholder, results showed pretax profits fell almost 23 per cent in the first half of the year. O’Brien this week appointed industrial relations expert Kieran Mulvey as his representative to INM’s board.

Shareholders elsewhere, however, were toasting the good times. First, it emerged that six Irish businessmen will share a $635 million payday after selling a company that developed a drug used in the frontline as the United States battles an opioid crisis.

Waterford entrepreneur Seamus Mulligan and his team invested €115 million to set up Adapt Pharma just over four years ago. Their team focused on a drug, Naloxone, which has been in use for many years and is commonly used in hospital anaesthesia.

Elsewhere, Irish books and stationery retailer Eason is planning to sell 13 properties in the Republic in a move that it expects to generate a €60 million windfall for its 220 investors.

Trump threatens WTO

US president Donald Trump adopted his usual sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut approach this week as he threatened to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organisation, thereby undermining decades of post-second World War order.

Trump said he wants – you guessed it – “better treatment” from what is a cornerstone of the international trading system. He added that the agreement establishing the body was – right again – “the single worst trade deal ever made”. Sound familiar?

The US president, speaking in the Oval Office, also had another pop at China. The communist-led state won’t win the trade war, he said. “We are a much stronger country . . . Nobody’s waiting us out.”

Despite Trump’s approach, the world can’t afford to ignore the US, and new trade deals are being struck. This week it was Mexico’s turn, as the two nations agreed to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

That in turn put pressure on Canada to agree to new terms on car trade and dispute settlement rules if it wants to remain part of the three-nation pact. Trump and Canadian leader Justin Trudeau will “continue productive conversations”, the White House said.

Back home, Trump’s tax policy was credited with the relocation of Afilias, a company that manages hundreds of millions of internet addresses, from Dublin to Pennsylvania. After 18 years headquartered in the IFSC, it upped sticks citing “recent favourable US tax changes”.