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# The briefcase
Here's everything you need to know about business this week
Everyone was talking about Greek debt deals, counting calories and the end of cheap booze.
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?
READ: Why does IAG want to get its hands on Aer Lingus so badly? >
READ: Do we really live on a ‘treasure island’ for the big supermarket chains? >
