Breakfast Business

Joe Lynam takes a look at the main business stories in Wednesday papers and websites.

15 years ago Shannon airport became the first in the world to have US customs preclearance. Dublin has since followed and other international airports are hoping to get there as well.  It was the first time that US bound passengers could do all their customs on foreign soil and avoid hours of queuing in American airports.  It comes as Shannon will soon mark the 80th anniversary of the world’s first duty free shop.  But smaller airports still struggle to compete for business against the magnetic pull of Dublin airport.  Joining Joe on the show this morning was Mary Considine, the Chief Executive of Shannon Airport.

We’re in heady times in geopolitical terms.  Russia has foreign soldiers in its territory for the first time since 1944.  A regional war looms in the Middle East and the world holds its breath to see who will be in the White House next year.  All of these issues impact the economy and to discuss some of them is Monika Bičkauskaitė with the Key Elements Group who was also with the German Marshall Fund.

The leaving cert results will be out on Friday. Apart from anxious students, some parents will have spent a small fortune trying to get their children the best grades possible. That includes of course grinds which can often be an expensive business. Ronan Murdock is the co founder of Grinds 360  online grinds service, which allows students to brush up on weaker subjects but also to access notes for all subjects all from the cloud.  His backers include the rugby legend Brian O'Driscoll. Ronan joined Joe this morning on the show.

52,000 inspections usually unannounced were carried out over the past year to maintain public safety and keep standards up for pubs, restaurants and even pop up providers and vans. It comes as the FSAI launches a new portal with plenty of videos showing would-be food providers what they need to know about hygiene and food storage if they are thinking of opening up a premises. Dr Bernard Hegarty Director of Enforcement Policy with the Food Standard Authority of Ireland joined Joe to discuss in studio this morning.

Joe Lynam takes a look at the main business headlines this morning.

For every Euro spent on diesel in Finland, the government charges drivers 54 cents in taxes while Cyprus levies only 39 cents.  For petrol, it’s 60 and 43 cents respectively.  But according to Fuels for Ireland, Ireland will soon pass the Finns out when it comes to motor fuel taxation after the budget in October. But is that a bad thing if we’re trying to discourage carbon emissions and move over to electric vehicles?    Joe discusses this with Kevin McPartland is the Chief Executive of Fuels for Ireland.

Russ Mould from AJ Bell  brings us all the international business news.

Men in business tend to be bigger risk takers and that means they might lose more but also make much bigger profits. One business which has done some research in this area Spark Crowdfunding and Chris Burge is the Chief Executive of Spark Crowdfunding.

DART+, the Cork LUAS and Metro as well as  dozens of road building projects are just some of the big contracts which the government will be offering out to tender to builders soon.  But will Irish construction companies even bother applying?  According to the Construction Industry Federation, 48% of their members have no or low involvement in public infrastructure projects.  Much of that is down to low margins and leaky contracts.  Paul Sheridan, Director of Main Contracting in the Construction Industry Federation joined Joe on the show.

Dublin Bus carries more people every day than any other public or private transport provider on the island of Ireland.  It gets a hard time sometimes for its speed and its disappearing ‘ghost’ buses but it’s at the heart of the capital city and is carrying more passengers than ever before.  But Dublin Bus is not the master of its own fate.  It has multiple bosses including the National Transport Authority, the Government or the day and any one of 4 local Dublin authorities    Joining Joe in studio was Billy Hann the Chief Executive of Dublin Bus.

A look at the international business stories this morning Aidan Donnelly from Davys.

Dr Johnny Ryan is the Director of Enforce.ie at the Irish council of civil liberties who has been warning about the unchecked power of Big technology for years. Dr Ryan joined Joe on the show this morning,

Joe Lynam takes a look through Thursday's business papers and websites.

The Irish population is growing 4 times as fast as the economy can build new homes. That 4 to 1 ratio is far higher than comparable countries such as Canada or Australia. That’s the result of a study from Savills which comes hot on the heels of most chartered surveyors saying that house prices and rents were simply too high. Savills also says that some of the issues with soaring rental prices may have arisen due to Central bank of Ireland rules curbing lending to households.  John Ring, Director of Research at Savills spoke to Joe this morning to chat about these findings.

Whether it’s from Vietnam, Venezuela, the Caribbean or Sicily, Street Food provides quality food delivered from a van or something on wheels and it is sweeping the nation. Seany McCleary was in the street food vending business himself until he returned from abroad and discovered there was more money in advising other vendors than doing it himself.  Now StreatSchool does exactly that and has at least 250 trucks and vans on the road in what is rapidly becoming an important part of Ireland’s gastronomic scene.  

Wednesday business headlines and news with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

22,000 consumers have complained about a product or service they received in the first half of this year according to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. That’s up nearly a fifth on last year.  The most complained about sectors were vehicles and transport and then telecoms and broadband.  Joe discusses these findings with Grainne Griffin from the CCPC. 

Enjoy the Olympics folks?  Enjoy the fact that Ireland has never won as many medals?  Note the fact that without financial support, none of that would have been possible?  We may think athletes don't need money to win stuff but they do.  Our rowers need to be trained to the highest standards and someone has to pay for that?  Property advisers Avison Young have been sponsoring Rowing Ireland for 8 years and take great pride in the Gold medal won last week by Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan. Fergal Burke is the Managing Director of the commercial property advisers Avison Young 

The market gyrations last week led to a few people reassess where their future savings should go.  Interest rates on deposits are still risible. And Some may have said that shares were too risky.  Others may start looking at alternative investments such commodities and even Cryptocurrencies.Some may decide to leave much of the decision-making to others through family offices.  All topics for Karl Rogers Chief Investment Officer with Elkstone.