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Energy prices to fall, stick or twist on tracker mortgage, and noisy co-workers

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

The energy regulator expects Irish suppliers to homes and businesses to begin cutting energy prices in the fourth quarter of this year. Photograph: PA

Ciarán Hancock's face
Ciarán Hancock
Mon Aug 21 2023 - 06:30

Ireland’s energy watchdog has said it expects gas and electricity prices for domestic users to start falling within weeks as a result of the decline in the cost of oil and gas on international wholesale markets, while the State’s gas network operator does not expect disruption to the supply of natural gas this winter. Conor Pope and Ian Curran have the details.

Dublin City Council has granted planning permission to Jamie Rohan, the managing director of property group Rohan Holdings, for a revamp of his “high quality” family home on Ailesbury Road, Dublin 4. Gordon Deegan reports.

It will surprise precisely no one to learn the most reliable source of co-worker anguish is noise, writes FT columnist Pilita Clark. The solution is probably to work from home more.

In our first personal finance Q&A of the week, a reader wonders if now is the right time to abandon their rising tracker mortgage rate with no guarantee that the ECB will end the recent cycle of interest rate hikes. Dominic Coyle offers a view. If you’d like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money, the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.

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The UK blew its oil and gas income on tax cuts, while Norway invested it. What will Ireland do with its corporation tax windfall? Eoin Burke-Kennedy ponders this question in his weekly column.

In a hard-hitting Opinion piece, consumer advocate Brendan Burgess says Bank of Ireland’s technology failure last week was no excuse for theft.

In Me & My Money, Ray Blackwell, a pub owner and cofounder of the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival, tells Tony Clayton-Lea about getting married in Las Vegas at “the little white chapel” by an Elvis impersonator, after which he went to a “fancy bar” and asked for their most expensive tequila. “The server told me it was €5,000 for a shot so I immediately settled for the inferior but delicious €200 shot!”

China is expected to make the biggest cuts this year to two of its core lending rates as pressure mounts on policymakers and banks to reverse slowing momentum and revive flagging demand in the world’s second-biggest economy, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Thousands of security guards here are set to receive a first pay rise in four years at the start of September as an Employment Regulation Order agreed more than a year ago finally comes into force. Emmet Malone reports.

The Department of Public Expenditure rebuffed two requests for higher salaries for incoming bosses of two public bodies, records show. Ken Foxe has the details.

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