New tax on land sales, Sinn Féin’s courting of big business, and Bakhurst and the RTE DG process

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk


Landowners and developers could end up paying the State more than 50 per cent of the increase in the value of land that is rezoned for housing under new legislation aimed at clamping down on property speculation. Eoin Burke-Kennedy has the details on this latest housing initiative by the Government.

With Sinn Féin riding high in the polls, how does big business in Ireland feel about the prospect of the party being in government after the next general election? Joe Brennan reports on Sinn Féin’s tricky balancing act to maintain the support of those captivated by its left-wing agenda while convincing the business community that there is no reason for alarm.

On a similar theme, our columnist John FitzGerald argues that higher taxes on the well-off is the best way to control inflationary pressures.

Wind farms will be paid for electricity they cannot supply under the terms of the Government’s latest renewable energy aid scheme, it has emerged. Barry O’Halloran reports.

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A consortium led by US private equity giant KKR has generated about €1.8 billion selling down almost all of its shares in Flutter Entertainment (owner of Paddy Power) in the past two years, writes Joe Brennan.

In Any Other Business, John Burns notes how it must be a case of deja vu for Kevin Bakhurst in terms of the process to become director general of RTÉ. In a 2016 interview with the Irish Daily Mail, Bakhurst noted how the DG recruitment process he had just been through had “seemed to drag on interminably”. Not much seems to have changed in the intervening period.

While its sister firms in the United States and the UK are planning cuts following the collapse of the proposed global split of audit and consulting, EY Ireland said it was continuing to add jobs as it eyes “another year of record growth”. Joe Brennan has the details.

In Wild Geese, Clare woman Jacinta Tobin recounts how she wanted to be an astronaut when she was in school. That dream didn’t come through but she does now works in space security and defence, having settled in California 20 years ago. She spoke with Olive Keogh.

Germany is confident it can keep the lights on even after it closes the door for good on nuclear energy on Saturday, writes Derek Scally in Berlin.

Skills-first is the new buzzword in human resource management and it’s raising eyebrows because it turns traditional recruiting on its head. Olive Keogh explains why in our World of Work feature.

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