Breakfast Business

Just as consumers need to know the progeny of meat products before they buy in the supermarkets, companies in the construction and furniture business would also like to know where the timber they use comes from. Now an Irish company is part of a consortium that has EU funding to trace wood products using data management and injecting a product into the cut wood. Garret Mullooly is Operations Director with Treemetrics

Earlier this week the President signed the Courts & Civil Law Act which will change the onus of responsibility back towards the individual and away from businesses. This act should drive down premiums and hopefully enable more big events which had been cancelled due to huge insurance costs. But will they? Speaking to this morning was Moyagh Murdock is the chief executive of Insurance Ireland

A look at today's business papers and markets with Joe Lynam and Moyagh Murdock is the chief executive of Insurance Ireland.

Northern Ireland may be in a political vacuum but its economy is motoring on regardless. The body that represents the biggest employers in the North is publishing a new report today that lauds the progress in the economy there since the Protocol allowed Northern Ireland to benefit from unfettered access to the European Single market as well as the UK. Glyn Roberts, the Chief Executive of Retail NI spoke to Joe this morning.

Only this week, tourism bosses urged the government to make it easier to recruit people in the hospitality sector from outside the EU. Now there’s a new website which specialises in doing exactly that. It’s called Recruitroo and is backed by Enterprise Ireland and private equity. But should we be hiring people from overseas amid a housing crisis? Speaking to Joe this morning was Shane Kiernan the Director of Recruitroo.

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

We all know how important skills are and we've spoken about skills shortages many times but how do you get the appropriate skills if you can't afford the time nor money to do a degree or a diploma? One solution may be micro credits which are short courses in specific areas to beef up your CV. The Ministers for Enterprise and Higher Education will launch a new website today which aims to facilitate just these courses. It’s called microcreds.ie and Jools O’Connor from MicroCreds joined Joe this morning on the show.

Social enterprises are companies without a profit motive. They provide a valuable service and sometimes fill the gaps in the market that normal companies can't or won't fill. Rethink Ireland supports more than a hundred social enterprises and they in turn provide services for 400,000 in this country. To discuss their important role was Deirdre Mortell is the CEO of Rethink Ireland.

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

There is a drastic shortage of planning experts in the public and private sectors. It won’t help that planning experts were not included in the initial round of skills shortages, which the Government is hoping to highlight. Now the Irish Planning Institute says that almost 2/3 of public sector bodies say they have “significant shortages“ of experts and it is holding up the whole economy. Sean O’Leary a senior planner with the IPI from Cork gave Joe more details on these findings.

Irish pension funds manage €128 billion of retirement savings. It’s a very important job and one which needs to weigh up risk versus reward for the savers. But it’s also a very profitable line of business for the big insurance companies who hold great power with their shareholdings in businesses all over the world. But are they exercising that power correctly? Speaking to Joe on the show this morning was Jerry Moriarty the boss of the Irish Association of Pension Funds.

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

Large energy users such as Data centers of big manufacturing plants have a big challenge decarbonizing without losing vital supplies of electricity. For a start they need to rethink where they can get reliable renewable energy into their facilities. This is what the US multinational UIG or the Utility Innovation Group does and today they’re announcing that they're buying the Irish energy consultants Enicity. Alan McHugh is the boss of EniCity which is being taken over and joined Joe Lynam on the show this morning.

There was always a risk that the dream of doing our bit to protect the environment would come up against the cold hard reality of soaring energy bills and rising costs. Well, that’s been borne out by the latest AIB sustainability survey. Only 4 in 10 of those polled said sustainability was important to them - the lowest in 4 years. A third said they were already cutting down on the number of flights they took. Gerard O’Neill from Amarach Research conducted the study for AIB and joined Joe Lynam on the show.

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

This week we hear that corporation tax revenue rose by a whopping 20% in a single year as we head for another huge budget surplus. It all means that a year or so before a general election the Government will almost certainly be giving money back to taxpayers in the October Budget. With more on this Joe spoke to Peter Vale is Tax Partner with Grant Thornton.

The European Inventor Awards were held this week and Eimear O'Carroll alongside Rhona Togher won it for Ireland in the SME category. They co-founded Lios which makes a brand new material designed to soak up sound and noise more effectively. Eimear joined Joe on the show.

We take a look at the business markets today with Aidan Donnelly from Davy's.

With the public finances in rude health, the Government agency charged with managing how much money we borrow the NTMA has said it will only go to the markets one more time this year. Does this mean we don't need to borrow any money and do we have enough if the economic wind changes? Joe was joined on the show this morning NTMA Chief Executive, Frank O’Connor, and began by asking him why Ireland won't be going to the money markets after Sept?

We all hate the constant stream of fake texts and fraudulent emails - purporting to be from An Post, eFlow, or a bank. For small companies, the threat can sometimes be worse because they get subjected to ransomware on top of that where fraudsters threaten to cripple the firm’s business if they don't pay a ransom. Neil McDonnell the chief executive of the Irish small and medium-sized enterprises group ISME spoke to Joe this morning.