Breakfast Business

The real deal event for small and medium-sized companies starts tomorrow in Goffs County Kildare. Entrepreneurs will hear motivational speeches from successful businessmen and women. So what is the mood out there among small firms? Stuart Fitzgerald from the Real Deal event which starts tomorrow in Dublin

How many times have you cursed the bank that you’re dealing with but also resigned yourself from the fact that you have no other choice than to deal with commercial banks? Well, change is potentially on its way. Many of the world’s biggest central banks are thinking about creating a way of bypassing commercial banks and enabling companies to do their banking directly with the central banks. Haydn Jones is a managing director in the Data Insights and Forensics at Kroll

A run-through of some of the business stories this morning with Business Editor Joe Lynam.

Circle K is a well-known retail brand in Ireland, and in every county in the country with more than 2000 staff. You would need a fair amount of experience and ability to be a director of the company and our next guest is still in his 30s but has earned the accolade of Newstalk business person of the month. Paul Dixon Director of Retail Sales and Operations at Circle K Ireland and is our Newstalk BPTM for April. All with thanks to Everlsheds Sutherland.

We often talk on this program about Ireland’s excellent trading relationships with the United States, Germany, and even post-Brexit Britain. But we often neglect our fourth biggest trading partner in terms of exports, Belgium. we exported €17 billion to Belgium last year, but we only imported two .2 billion from them. Joining Joe this morning on the show was Her Excellency Mrs. Karen Van Vlierberge - the Belgian Ambassador to Ireland.

Joe Lynam takes a look at this morning's markets and business news with Aidan Donnelly from Davys.

The number of vacancies in the Irish jobs market has dipped a little. It’s not a downturn but it may signify that the economy is not running as hot as it was a few months ago. Also the number of jobs advertised as ‘fully remote’ has fallen now for 3 quarters in a row which may signify that the lockdown market for working from home is softening. Sam McIlveen, Managing Director of StepStone Ireland, the parent company of IrishJobs who carried out the research discussed the findings with Joe this morning.

According to the Central Bank of Ireland data this week, the average legal fees for claims using the personal injury assessment Board were just over €1000 whereas the average legal fees if the matter is brought before the courts known as litigation were €18,000. It’s all important because insurance premiums cannot fall without some controls placed on big payouts in the courts according to the insurance industry. Speaking to Joe with more on this Stuart Gilhooley from HJ Ward personal injury solicitors joins me now.

A look at today's business papers and websites with Newstalk's Business Editor Joe Lynam.

The Irish Management Institute (IMI) has been training managers for 61 years and is now affiliated with University College Cork. It’s launching a new Senior Executive Experience (SEE) programme and has conducted a survey about the wants and needs of the companies of the future. To tell us more about the programme was Shane O’Sullivan, Interim Chief Executive at the IMI.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Business Editor Joe Lynam.

Last November, the EU pass legislation called the Digital Services Act which applied new stricter controls on all content published in Europe by the big tech giants - aimed at preventing abuse, harm and misselling. Now in the next stage of the DSA, the Digital services Commissioner Thierry Breton has ‘designated’ or published guidelines for big Technology. So for example, the algorithms, which decide what we see and read on those sites, will be inspected by the Commission’s own in-house experts at the EU’s new Centre for Algorithmic Transparency. Johannes Bahrke works for the European Commission in this area and joined Joe on the show this morning.

The annual review of food production and farming in this country has been published by Teagaisc and Chartered Surveyors. As you can imagine the invasion of Ukraine played a huge role on fertilizer and energy prices. The price of farmland was also up but by less than domestic property. So what does it all mean for food producers this year? Edward Mc Auley, Director of Practice & Policy for the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland spoke to Joe on the show this morning on the findings of the report.

Private equity is the catch-all description for when wealthy individuals usually with experience take stakes in private or listed companies. They often use their stakes to turn businesses around or simply improve them in order to sell their holdings for a profit. The lawyers Taylor Wessing has assessed the Irish private equity market and found that there was a flight to quality and less risky companies last year. Speaking to Joe this morning was Adam Griffiths who is an M&A partner at Taylor Wessing and head of its Dublin office.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Business Editor Joe Lynam.

Ballygowan is Ireland’s best-known indigenous water brand and is bottled in Newcastle Co Limerick. Up to now that plant has run on energy from a variety of sources most of which used fossil fuels. That’s about to change. Britvik which owns Ballygowan, has signed a deal with Flogas to use only renewable energy from a wind farm in neighbouring Co Galway. Speaking to Joe this morning on the show was Sian Young, Director of Sustainable Business at Britvic Ireland.

20 years ago, the supermarket chain Lidl had less than one percent of the Irish grocery market. Now it has 13%. It’s growing at such a pace that it has built one of the biggest warehousing and distribution centres on the island of Ireland in Mullingar. That facility is nine times the size of the Aviva Stadium, and now it has put solar panels on the roof to supply 20% of its sizable energy requirements. Alan Barry, Chief Development Officer at Lidl Ireland

Business Editor Joe Lynam takes a run through of some of the business stories today.

The annual conference for the Irish League of credit unions takes place this weekend and one of the major themes of the get-together will be consumer protections but also increased competition in the world of financial services David Malone Chief Executive of the Irish League of Credit Unions spoke to Joe on the show this morning ahead of the conference.

Fake adverts, bogus claims, and even fraud On or Offline all come under the microscope of the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland. But there are so many adverts out there that the ASAI don't have enough human eyeballs to monitor them. Now they’re using AI and software to scour the web for breaches. To explain how and why they are doing it this way, Joe spoke to Orla Twomey - the Chief Executive of the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland.