Gender pay gap most pronounced in legal profession

Analysis of gender pay gap reports submitted recently by large-scale employers in Ireland has revealed the difference between what men and women are paid on an hourly basis declined marginally last year but large discrepancies still exist in certain industries, reports Ian Curran. The research, conducted by PwC Ireland, reveals that in the more than 550 companies obliged to publish gender pay gap reports recently, the hourly gap stood at 11.2 per cent last year, down from 12.6 per cent last year.

Dublin-based dentist Seapoint Clinic is investing €2 million in a new state-of-the-art facility in the Beacon Quarter in Sandyford.The group, which was established 15 years ago, is seeking to capitalise on a post-Covid boom in specialist orthodontic care. It sees more than 1,200 customers per month and has a clinic on Seapoint Avenue in Blackrock. The firm employs more than 50 people. Colin Gleeson reports.

The way our sense of time was warped during the pandemic has been well documented across the world. Italians thought time dragged. Some Britons thought it sped up. In the Australian state of Victoria, a lockdown hotspot, researchers compared the distortion with jet lag, writes Pilita Clark in her weekly column. But it is almost a year since the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 was no longer a global public health emergency, so shouldn’t we have reset by now? Not necessarily.

MyGug, the Cork-based food waste-to-energy start-up, has raised €900,000 in seed funding that it says will assist with its expansion into the UK and Europe. The company, which has developed an egg-shaped anaerobic digester that turns food waste into renewable energy and fertiliser, has customers in food services and education settings in Ireland and is planning to grow its footprint abroad. Ian Curran reports.

Latest euro zone inflation figures suggest ECB will move slowly on rates

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Card data suggests it’s not all doom and gloom in the hospitality sector

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Extend EV grant to second-hand purchases, says PwC

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Wave of innovation aims to make desalination sustainable

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Buried in the recesses of a 2018 report by the Office of Public Works (OPW) is an eye-catching assessment of the risk posed to Dublin from an extreme flooding event. For Ireland, climate change-induced weather events are more likely to manifest as flooding, writes Eoin Burke-Kennedy.

Investment in Irish financial technology (fintech) companies plummeted in 2023, new research from KPMG has indicated, as deal volumes and values plunged worldwide. A melange of interconnected challenges – including rising interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty and still-elevated levels of inflation – conspired to shrink the market for investment in technology last year as investors opted to hold on to their money. Ian Curran has the details.

What is behind Bitcoin's remarkable recovery?

Listen | 25:48

In his Your Money Q&A Dominic Coyle deals with a question concerning “a single mother of two children who is doing her best to pay her mortgage during a period of 10 rate increases in 18 months. The Government promoted this as a cost of living measure to help families in 2024. She, of all people, is who this credit should be targeted towards”.

The tax transparency debate continues to gain momentum. Stakeholders are demanding more meaningful information on tax, resulting in some companies opting to publish comprehensive tax disclosures. More and more stakeholders and the public at large want to understand a company’s approach to tax and how much tax it pays. This can only be demonstrated through the information they communicate, argues Aidan Lucey, tax transparency partner at PwC Ireland

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