PTSB has announced a voluntary redundancy plan that could see hundreds of staff leave the bank as it looks to cut costs but the timing of the announcement has come under fire from the Financial Services Union, writes Joe Brennan.
One in five Irish people now expect to still be paying off their mortgage in retirement, according to a survey by insurance group Royal London. As the age at which people buy their first homes continues to rise, Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports that a further 14 per cent think they’ll be renting.
Eoin also looks at an ESRI study evaluating the fairness of Budget 2025, which finds that the failure to fully index the tax and welfare system in recent budgets has made Irish households poorer once temporary and one-off measures are excluded.
Childcare was a big focus in the budget and new figures from the group behind Ireland’s largest childcare operator show operating profits slumped by almost three-quarters in 2022 as the Government began to reduce Covid subsidies when the emergency phase of the pandemic receded. Busy Bees, a UK-headquartered group, entered the Irish market with the acquisition of Giraffe Childcare in 2019 before acquiring the Park Academy network of crèches and preschools in 2021, writes Ian Curran.
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Developers Rick and Michael Larkin were the headline-grabbers in the last list of tax defaulters published by the Revenue Commissioners. Their Vieira construction group, now in liquidation, agreed to a settlement for over €6.7 million – 45 per cent of the total across the 36 named defaulters. Ian Curran writes that former Fianna Fáil junior minister Ivor Callely was another name to feature in the list.
New car sales fell 12 per cent in November compared to last year, with the total for the year to date down 1 per cent at 115,639 vehicles, writes Michael McAleer. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Imports of used cars have jumped 25 per cent this year, with most of those being six years or older.
A contract to house asylum seekers was key to profit at the recently-built Travelodge Plus hotel in Dublin city centre. Gordon Deegan notes that Pumkinspice, the company behind the hotel, got €10.6 million from the Department of Integration last year for accommodating international protection applicants, as overall revenues jumped 13 per cent to €21 million.
The regulator running an auction among companies looking to supply power to Ireland’s network has been told by a High Court judge to reconsider applications by two companies that had been barred from taking part.
In Drogheda, An Taisce urged Louth planners not to sanction a proposal for a three-storey data centre, saying it would “further compromise our ability to achieve compliance with our carbon budget limits”. Gordon Deegan has the details.
Turning to Christmas, Joanne Hunt has tips in Money Matters to ensure your credit card does not spiral out of control at an inevitably expensive time of year.
And a Paypal survey says Irish people increasingly favour giving friends and family cash rather than gifts at this time of year. And the average spend? This year, it will be €525, it says, although that figure can rise as high as €780 in Carlow, Kildare and Meath which are the biggest spending counties. Ciara O’Brien reports.
Commercial Property is taking a couple of weeks out over Christmas.
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