It will be a happy Christmas for Declan Carlyle, the former managing director of the Irish operation of Independent News & Media (INM) and its long-time human resources chief. He's got a new job.

Carlyle, who soldiered for INM throughout the O'Reilly years and initially survived the regime change that followed, left the company a few weeks ago. Celine Doyle, who once worked in Burma for Denis O'Brien, INM's largest and most influential shareholder, took over its HR function on a consultancy basis.

Carlyle has this month been appointed as head of group human resources and organisation development at CIÉ, the parent company of Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus.

They’re a a chippy lot, those bus and train drivers, so Carlyle won’t exactly be putting his feet up.