Next month’s impending decision by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) regarding aircraft landing slots at Dublin Airport could potentially result in a drastic decline in passenger numbers by nearly one million next summer. This fear is palpable among airlines as the regulator aims to tighten the bottleneck on a planning limit which is already capped for this winter. This decision could have further adverse implications for airlines, passengers, and the tourism trade.
In a separate report, lorry drivers have raised issues regarding the quality of eco-friendly fuel messing up their machinery, leading to expensive repairs. However, it wasn’t long before suppliers counter attacked. Barry O’Halloran details the response from Fuels for Ireland against the original grievances aired by the Irish Road Haulage Association.
Furthermore, divulging figures for Longford’s Center Parcs showcases the attraction’s undeniable popularity among Irish families. The forest resort rakes in close to €1.9 million weekly, due to their diverse offer of lodge rentals, shopping, and activity booking. The year preceding April 2024 saw the revenue at the Irish location soar to €96.7 million, a generous increase from the previous year’s figure of €87.4 million.
Contrarily, the sale of AIB stock, the most recent move by the Government, wouldn’t necessitate a reconsideration of the contentious salary cap for senior staff. Ken Foxe garnered such a conclusion from documents he obtained. Department officials informed former finance minister Michael McGrath about the specifics, encouraging him to proceed with the sale ahead of the Budget. This move led to a profit of €593 million for the National Treasury.
Finally, Gordan Deegan discloses plans for a second funeral home in Dundrum which has been given the green light for construction. Upon completion, this will increase the total number of branches in the south Dublin suburb to three. This approval came not long after Fanagans Funeral Directors, already established in the area, secured permission to build a funeral home in Willowfield Park, soon after Massey Bros announced their plans to launch their tenth Dublin branch close to the Goat Bar and Grill, owned by Charlie Chawke.
Ian Curran has provided an update regarding Lone Star, an American private equity firm, offloading its Irish real estate enterprise, Quintain, to TPG, a company based in Texas. The transaction deal, in the ballpark of around €200 million, has been in the pipeline for a while and comprises Dublin property holdings along with the Quintain Developments Ireland (QDI) platform.
In other news, Virginia International Logistics, a business specialising in warehousing and freight transport, is making plans to take over Allmed, a freight company located in Kilkenny. Ian Curran provides an analysis of this pending deal which, upon receiving green light from the competition watchdog, would result in what the companies refer to as a comprehensive solution for transport, warehousing, and distribution services.
A forthcoming report is predicting that impending regulations may lead to data breach reports at least doubling in number. As underlined by Colin Gleeson, it has been predicted by the Compliance Institute that these EU-wide cybersecurity rules, due to take effect next year, will bring significant changes for financial service firms throughout Europe. They will result in a completely revolutionised set of standards within areas such as ICT-related incident protection, detection, containment, recovery, and management.
Meanwhile, in a surprising twist in the food and beverage sector, Starbucks’ future leader Brian Niccol is heading for a potentially lucrative package of cash and stocks potentially exceeding €102 million. This is part of his mission to hone the fate of the Seattle-based coffee company. An added perk of his deal includes a California office, 1,100 miles away, and he won’t have to relocate to Seattle.
In the 1930’s Irish citizens used to consume roughly two kilos of bananas per year. Today, their annual banana consumption has surged to approximately 17 kilos. John Fitzgerald, in his column, examines the implications of this trend. He notes that while the EU single market brought many benefits, banana aficionados felt a pinch. French and British insistence on import protections for bananas from their former colonies led to a roughly 50% increase in banana prices in Ireland.