“We’ll be poorer for longer” if inflation becomes embedded in the Irish economy, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has warned. Budget 2023 must therefore strike a balance between helping those most impacted by the current price squeeze while avoiding adding to existing inflationary pressures, he said. Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports.
More men should be encouraged to enter the public relations and communications sector, the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) said, after a study it commissioned found 69 per cent of professionals in the business are women. Laura Slattery has the details.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage points for the third time in a row and signalled its intention to keep monetary policy tight as it tries to hit the brakes on the overheating US economy. Colby Smith in Washington and Kate Duguid in New York report.
Clear aligners are the almost invisible braces used by dentists to correct mild to moderate orthodontic problems. However, many dentists don’t offer the treatment because it can be a hassle to set up and time consuming to run. However, newly formed dental software company, Smile Genius, says its plug and play system makes the process as painless as possible. Olive Keogh reports.
We are not known as a land of watch makers, but in Belfast – the home of heavy engineering on the island – one man is making a success of a boutique watch brand that pays homage to the city’s seafaring past, writes Neil Briscoe.
For Microsoft’s Jared Spataro, the past few years have been a learning experience. A frequent international traveller for work, he was grounded indefinitely during the pandemic when non-essential travel shut down, writes Ciara O’Brien. But the pandemic has also helped energise his work, bringing new momentum to his role at the company. As Microsoft’s corporate vice president in charge of modern work, he is tasked with predicting, shaping and innovating the future of work.
Sennheiser has been busy. The company’s Momentum 4 headphones – the fourth generation, as the name suggests – come with an all-new design and some extra technology that make them an excellent competitor in the wireless headphone market. Ciara O’Brien gives them a whirl.
On our Inside Business podcast Jack Horgan-Jones and Cliff Taylor discuss Budget 2023 , when the government is expected to deliver a huge package of relief for households as well as the usual adjustments to taxes and new fiscal initiatives. One sector that will be watching closely next week is tourism. Businesses will be hoping for an extension of the 9 per cent VAT rate that was brought in to help them survive the pandemic. But there are indications the rate, which was extended by six months in May, will not be extended again. Eoghan O’Mara Walsh is chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation. He tells presenter Ciaran Hancock why the rate should stay and how the sector is faring.
One of the ways my partner and I are well-suited is that we both like board games, and I am not very good at them. This helps, because my partner is a gracious winner but an appalling loser. Once, in her early teens, during a game of draughts with her sister, she responded to an unwinnable position by turning over the table, writes Stephen Bush. If artificial intelligence does destroy human life, it will almost certainly be more like my partner’s reaction to defeat than the destructive intelligence from the Terminator films. Catastrophe will come not when a sophisticated intelligence decides to use its power for deliberate evil, but when the easiest way to fulfil its programming and to “win” is to turn over the table.
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