Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
EVERY WEEKEND, TheJournal.ie gives its readers the chance to put their feet up and take a look back at all the goings-on from the world of business.
Once again it’s time to delve deep inside The Briefcase for all the important – and sometimes less-important – financial news that has come out this working week:
The new Greek administration started running into some road blocks to its plans for debt relief. The anti-austerity Syriza government came up with a swap deal in a bid to escape what it labelled “debt slavery”, but the ECB was playing hardball - threatening to block emergency funding to the country. And the country’s finance minister couldn’t even “agree to disagree” after the pair met for their first conference.
New proposals to tackle alcohol abuse were launched. The Health Department plans included restrictions on alcohol advertising, but one of the most controversial inclusions was a new minimum sale price. It was predicted, if the government used a price limit at the top of the range it was reportedly looking at, the minimum cost of a can of beer could be €2.75 and a bottle of wine more than €10
WOW Air announced it was offering transatlantic flights from Dublin for €149. The Icelandic budget carrier launched the introductory rate on flights to Boston and Washington, via Reykjavik. The company was started in 2011 by Icelandic entrepreneur Skúli Mogensen, who previously ran a mobile-software business
Ireland’s economic output will be back where it started in 2007 this year. That prediction came from Davy Research, which forecast GDP would finally be back at pre-recession levels – although the country certainly isn’t out of its debt and unemployment hole yet. Meanwhile, the Central Bank said it expected job growth to keep coming at only a “moderate pace” over the next two years
Meanwhile, the country was apparently out of austerity over 12 months ago. The somewhat delayed announcement came from Finance Minister Michael Noonan in the Dáil as he fielded questions from Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Paul Murphy on calls for a Europe-wide debt conference
The turbulent progress of IAG’s play for Irish carrier Aer Lingus rolled on. The airline conglomerate, which includes British Airways among others, made a series of promises to appease politicians and others who feared it planned to pull apart connections to airports outside Dublin and take the razor to staff levels
Ray D’Arcy continues to lose listeners in his new slot at RTÉ. The latest radio listener figures revealed the former Newstalk presenter shed 6,000 listeners. But elsewhere on the station, Marian Finucane is dominating the weekends
Ireland’s bank guarantee was billed as the ‘most destructive own goal in history’. Professor William Black told the banking inquiry the government’s infamous decision to guarantee even junior bondholders was “insane”
A European country wrote off the debts of thousands of its citizens, but it wasn’t Greece. The Croatian government brokered a deal with banks, utilities and other agencies to scratch the liabilities of an estimated 60,000 of its poorest nationals
Calorie counts will have to be put on restaurant menus under new laws approved by cabinet. The proposal would apply to all food outlets, including take-aways. But the restaurants and hotels lobby aren’t happy, and neither are many business owners
And one for the road…
We care so much about our readers here at TheJournal.ie towers that our staff are willing to put their own breakfasts on the line for you.
Nicky Ryan and Thomas Fanning demonstrated this fact during the week when they tested the Spinner app – which pretty well works as the name suggests.
Here’s what that looked like in practice:
And what was the verdict Nicky?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
So democracy in Ireland is now having the same party in power and opposition at the same time.
@james rowan: Independent TDs aren’t the same as Independent Ireland (the party)….. It’s literally in the title. So the same party are not in govt and in the opposition
Opposition should automatically be part of government. No elections needed!
@james rowan: I think you’ll find that the independents are not a party…
@smatrix mantra: I truly hope that the real opposition go to the courts to overturn this undemocratic scenario that has been thrust upon the electorate who have been fooled yet again by Fianna Fail.
I’d love it if the Gardai properly investigated Michael Lowry, because there is evidence out there proving he took a bung from Dobrien. It disgusts me that a crook has so much power over his peers in FF & FG.
@Steve McGarrett: That’s right they are FFG Proxies
@james rowan: Independents isn’t a political party. It’s literally in the name. They are independent TDs and not affiliated!….. So if the INDEPENDENT TDs aren’t part of a political party how are the same parties in govt and the opposition!?!?!?
@Frank Cauldhame: It is in the rules. They are rat cute and they won’t have made an error like that.
Fine Gael only came 3rd in the General Election
@Kevin O Brien: Cool. Thanks.
@Kevin O Brien: So what? SF came 2nd. The majority of voted ABSF so no government places for SF.
@Kevin O Brien: your point?
@Vincent Alexander: Complete claptrap.. by that logic the majority voted ABFF and ABFG .. or every other political party in the country. Mind your back ya auld codger.. you’ll do damage with all that contorting you’re doing.
@Kevin O Brien: And?
Get in extra vaseline and lube folks, cos the next 5 years are gonna be as painful for many as the last was, only this time with a severe chance of a recession hanging over the country head, only this time we cant tell people to leave cos they are a burden etc due to ya know the whole immigration for profit scam thats been happening. Gonna be fun to watch FFG and the independents trying to get along when things go wrong or off script
@Patrick Newell: never try and predict anything, especially the future. Know all.
@Patrick Newell: country doing fantastic. I was on a plane to Lanzarote, one of five yesterday, packed with old age pensioners and families off for a holiday, out last night, only accents you hear are Irish
@Dave f Doe: he also ran for president. Ha ha. How did that work out.
What drives me crazy is the people who say “ahhhhh why don’t you get out and vote if you want change”
What a load of bollox.
i did vote
Nothing has changed.
@reg morrisey: don’t vote again. It’s simple.
Every one of them including Fianna Fail & the Independents, are money grabbing parasites, only interested in what they can get from the public purse. Public Service in this country is no longer about serving the people and is more about feathering their own nests.
@The Firestarter: increasing their super inflated wages , appointing their friends and family members to the made up positions and posts to waste hard earned tax payers money without a single though of making peoples lifes easier.
Parasites is indeed a term you should describe them.
@The Firestarter: leave so if you actually believe your own BS
FFG with their combined pluracy telling the country that that they own the place and they always have. The reality is that they’ve built a Titanic and all they’ve done is left Cobh.
@Louis Jacob: *plurality even… lol.
Puke party
@N D K: sinn fein?
@Philip Kennedy: sinn fein never squandered our money or caused our youth to immigrate by the thousands because of the cost of them trying to begin there lives here, sinn fein never agreed to give an own door house to the world upon arrival here, plus a million more reasons I could give you, but you know yourself already
Knife found in kitchen drawer
Another week and more of this “Programme For Government” nonsense, our politicians and media love this “Programme For Government” thingy after every election as if it means something or for that matter implemented, another favourite word of theirs and the media is “Context” neither can compete a sentence without including it a least once or twice.
Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap.
Oh great! But did the other side of their arse not already agree to that? More of the same…… chancers!
Good to see there will be stable Government for the next five years.
@Johnny Wilson: won’t last 6 months
@Johnny Wilson: FFG and the independents sticking it out for 5 years?? Ya ill take ur stable bet and say if this lasts 18 months before something big happens and the independents turn on FFG or vice versa id be shocked.
@Alan Moloney: another soothsayer.
So many here were doing cartwheels celebrating when the Greens lost, now they’re complaining bitterly that their favourite facist party aren’t in charge. Clear indication that the right think the only votes that count are theirs
@FoxyBoiiYT: Muh fascism… YAWN!
@Chop Chop: Yep. Fascists are truly tiresome.
Of course they did. Hardly going to turn down all the pay rises.
Well of course they were going to. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are identical parties with identical policies and they might as well merge at this point. It’s so annoying that no good options ever pop up for the Irish people in the general elections that are held and the cosmopolitan progressive establishment takes change once again for the next five years. I’m so disappointed in our country that we keep enabling the same failed tax and spend policies that continually fail and drive up our national debt every year.
have your say