Insurers, business lobby groups and the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB) have called for an overhaul of how personal injury awards guidelines are set, amid concern that a planned 16.7 per cent hike to payouts will widen the gap with other European jurisdictions when it comes to whiplashes and other minor injuries.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan’s officials are working on draft legislation that would bring about the increase, which has been put forward by the Judicial Council under an awards guidelines regime that came into being four years ago. Joe Brennan has the details.
Smokers pay tens of thousands of euro more for life insurance and mortgage protection than non-smokers, according to new research from price comparison and switching website bonkers.ie.
For mortgage protection – a legal requirement for anyone taking out a mortgage in Ireland – a 38-year-old couple can pay as little as €35.60 a month for €300,000 in cover over 30 years as long as they’re both non-smokers. Conor Pope reports
Trump and the ‘nasty’ Taco trade
The bond vigilantes are on the prowl
‘The Japanese want to see you have the attention to detail, customer service and quality they expect. You have to deliver’
Average pay has passed €1,000 a week. The figure offers some key messages about where the economy is and how households are doing
Dutch private equity group Waterland is to invest a further €150 million here over the next year and a half as it looks to add to its growing portfolio of Irish companies.
At a time when the wider industry is reportedly pulling back on new investments and fundraises, the group’s Irish arm signalled on Friday that it plans to “dramatically” ramp up its expansion plans in the Republic, writes Ian Curran.
Ford Chief Lisa Brankin on accelerating the switch to EVs
More than two-thirds of job applications are rejected by employers because they lack the relevant skills for the role, new research has found, with others binned because applications are badly formatted or due to unexplained gaps in employment.
The survey, which was carried out for hiring platform IrishJobs, found that 78 per cent of employers are dissatisfied with the quality of job applications received, making it slower and more resource-intensive for employers. Ciara O’Brien reports.
Average Irish mortgage approval values rose to a record of more than €319,000 in April, new figures from the banking industry reveal, as house prices continued to climb, requiring property owners to take on higher levels of debt, reports Ian Curran.
At 7.55am most weekday mornings, about 60 staff at the Seating Matters’ manufacturing facility in Limavady, Co Derry meet for 45 minutes with the family owners and management. The factory makes therapeutic seating for people with disabilities.
It’s part training session to sharpen skills and knowledge, and partly a platform for both sides to air any issues from the previous day and is practice imported from Japanese business culture, Martin Tierney, managing director of Seating Matters tells Ciarán Hancock. He is one of 140 Irish business leaders in Japan this week as part of a CEO retreat organised by the EY Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) programme.
For the last two months European businesses have been facing 10 per cent tariffs, which are import taxes, when selling goods into the US. Cars and steel products sold from the EU to the US have been subject to 25 per cent levies.
The threat of across-the-board tariffs of 20 per cent, or even 50 per cent, if negotiations failed, has caused growing alarm across European industries. Jack Power brings us inside a crucial week in the trade talks between the European Union and the US
A key lesson from the miserable economic performance of the 1980s is that it is vital to act quickly when in a fiscal crisis. Spreading the adjustment out over the course of a decade made things worse rather than easier, argues John FitzGerald in his weekly column.
In the financial crisis that began in 2008-09, this lesson was learned. The really painful adjustment was completed between 2010 and 2013, resulting in a rapid and sustained recovery from 2014. While many at the time argued for a slower adjustment, it is likely that would only have prolonged the agony, as in the 1980s.
The Linwoods brand was for most of its history best known as a bread and milk producer and wholesaler but, amid changing economic fortunes and increased competition from multinationals, the family-owned company began to struggle. “My father always says ‘evolve or die’,” managing director Patrick Woods told Hugh Dooley in our interview slot. Linwoods has since evolved into one of the largest health food companies in Ireland, with distribution links with big retailers across the UK.
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