The Central Bank estimates that up to 27,000 Irish home loans snapped up by international funds in the wake of the financial crisis may be eligible to switch to active lenders under criteria agreed by the mortgage industry last month. The figure was contained in a letter sent this week by the Central Bank deputy governor Derville Rowland to Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty in response to questions.
While the rest of Google was recognising the company’s achievement in reaching a quarter of a century, the Irish office had its own reasons to celebrate, writes Ciara O’Brien. Not only was the company marking 20 years in Ireland – Google opened here in 2003 – but it was also celebrating the opening of the Flour Mills building, the first phase of the Bolands Mills development on Barrow Street. The historic, long-neglected location now extends Google’s presence even further in that part of town, stretching its offices to both ends of the street and beyond.
Karlin Lillington recently discovered eSims while on a trip to the US and says she will definitely be using good-value eSims again for my travels, and they could be handy for EU travel too, given those data caps. Intrigued? An online search will yield eSim provider comparison sites to find options that might work best for you.
Can an economy slowdown without seeing a jump in unemployment, wonders Cantillon. It may seem a strange question – it would seem obvious that joblessness would have to increase as the economy winds down – but is the Irish economy in a peculiar place these days, skewed as it is by multinationals moving intellectual property and other assets through the State?
Your work questions answered: Can bonuses be deducted pro-rata during a maternity leave?
Palantir, company at centre of row surrounding TD Eoin Hayes, is no stranger to controversy at home or abroad
Tips for avoiding a January credit-card hangover
Can I work for my foreign employer from my home in Ireland?
Nanobubbles may be tiny, but they have big potential when used successfully in sectors such as irrigated agriculture, aquaculture and water treatment. What’s hampering their wide-scale adoption, however, is cost. They are expensive to generate, writes Olive Keogh. That’s a problem NanobOx founders, Dr Mohammad Reza Ghaani and Dr John Favier, say their novel, nanobubble-based technology for low-cost water aeration has solved.
A comprehensive study by the University of Aberdeen back in 1995, which at the time found no evidence of food chain contamination from the Beaufort trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland, should be redone, argues Chris Horn. Of course, the Beaufort dyke is only one of many maritime dumping sites for munitions. The areas off the German coast and in the Baltic Sea are even larger, with an estimated two million tons of unexploded conventional and chemical ordinance in German waters alone.
The cost of climate change: ‘almost like driving another budget through public finances’
Minister for Media Catherine Martin doesn’t want to be seen to be “micromanaging” RTÉ, which is fair enough – editorial independence is central to the functioning of public service broadcasters, acknowledges Cantillon. But this wise reluctance to prescribe specific medicines to cure RTÉ of what politicians view as a penchant for profligacy also doubles as a handy get-out clause when it comes to the hard question of what exactly it is RTÉ must do to secure interim funding over and above the €16 million that will awarded on budget day.
It is relatively rare that I find a tech product I could genuinely describe as “cute”. Functional? Yes. Unnecessary? Sometimes. Expensive? Far too often. But cute? That is a rarely bestowed description in this line of work, says Ciara O’Brien in her tech review. And in this case, it is even rarer because I’m talking about a camera. Even the name wants to make you like it. The Fujifilm Instax Pal sounds safe and non-threatening. You want to own one, even if you don’t really know why.
Stay up to date with all our business news: sign up to our Business Today daily email news digest. 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.
