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French may sell stake in nursing home company Virtue and why you will feel better off this year

The best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

John FitzGerald tells us why we will feel better off this year.

Conn Ó Midheach's face
Conn Ó Midheach
Fri Jan 12 2024 - 06:36

French elderly care group Emera, which was among a wave of overseas investors to enter the Irish nursing sector in recent years, is exploring a sale of its 70 per cent stake in Virtue Group, the residential and home care company, sources have said. Joe Brennan has the details.

Last October, Gene Murtagh, chief executive of Kingspan, the construction products company based in Cavan, hosted a capital markets day at the company’s Light + Air manufacturing facility near Lyons, France. Top of the agenda, as he talked to his audience of analysts and investors, was the topic of growth. Barry J Whyte reports on the busy year ahead for the company.

A tax on commercial construction could redirect resources towards housing as a way of offsetting the inflationary impact of the Government’s infrastructure plans and could allocate scarce resources towards an area of need, a new Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) paper has argued. Ian Curran reports.

Irish-based aircraft lessors own Boeing 737 Max-9 jets subject to safety inspections following the mid-air blow-out of an emergency door, it has emerged, writes Barry O’Halloran. The news comes as US regulators begin investigating whether Boeing failed to ensure that completed aircraft could operate safely.

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State agency Bord Bia has awarded multi-national Ticketmaster a two-year, six-figure contract to sell tickets for the Bloom gardening festival that the taxpayer-funded organisation stages annually. The food export promotion agency sought bids for the Bloom ticketing contract late last year, awarding the deal to Ticketmaster, which provided the service in 2023, shortly before Christmas. Barry O’Halloran reports.

The last quarter of 2023 saw income growth significantly outpace the rise in prices, and this is set to continue into this year. This means that, for most households, 2024 will see a real increase in disposable incomes, even after the wind-down of temporary government income supports, writes John FitzGerald in his weekly column.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” is the loaded one-liner that often precedes the break-up of a big romance. However, when it comes to working relationships, “it’s not me, it’s you” might be a more accurate reflection of what causes employees to quit, writes Olive Keogh. Organisations tend to put their best foot forward when hiring. Carefully honed corporate messages can be irresistible to prospective candidates, especially if the job or organisation has a particular appeal for them. But once inside, the picture can look very different. That’s when the attitudes and behaviours that really underpin an organisation are experienced full on with no filters.

Is it time to start building homes on Dublin’s main parks?

Listen | 17:06

When Annette Bening and Jodie Foster announced Poor Things as the surprise winner of the Golden Globe for best picture (musical or comedy) at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, two of the four producers who raced to the stage to collect the award were Irish, writes Laura Slattery. Standing alongside the film’s Greek director-producer Yorgos Lanthimos and American star and producer Emma Stone were Element Pictures founders Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe, both from Dublin.

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