Avolon, one of the largest aircraft lessors in the world, has settled a lawsuit against insurers after suffering more than $300 million (€289 million) of losses when a number of its planes were seized by Russian airlines following the country’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago. Joe Brennan has the details.
Planners have blocked developer Paddy McKillen jnr’s bid to build a €40 million resort on the Co Wicklow coast. Mr McKillen’s company Creatively Pacific Ltd challenged Wicklow County Council’s decision to refuse it permission to build a tourist complex and surf school overlooking Magheramore beach. An Bord Pleanála rejected the appeal in a decision published this week. Barry O’Halloran reports.
Is US president Donald Trump opening the door to a wider global trade war – one that could have dire consequences for the global trading system – or merely using the threat of tariffs to extract quick concessions from competitor countries? And what does it all mean for Ireland? Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports in this week’s Agenda slot.
Bank of Ireland has moved to temper bonus expectations among staff, as falling interest rates, a potentially large UK car finance compensation bill, and trade risks from US president Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office in Washington cloud its earnings outlook, writes Joe Brennan.
It came as the bank agreed a 4 per cent increase for most staff for 2025 with the Financial Services Union (FSU) on Thursday.
Over the past three years, MSD has trebled the number of medicines it has in late–stage trials. Ireland is important to MSD. It has eight sites here, including six manufacturing facilities following the acquisition last month of Wuxi’s vaccines plant in Dundalk in a deal valued at €500 million.
Chief executive Rob Davis says that he expects to bring as many new treatments to market over the next five years as the company has done in the past decade. In our Interview of the Week Dominic Coyle speaks to Samantha Humphreys, who was appointed towards the end of last year to lead MSD Ireland Human Health, about the challenges in meeting her boss’s expectations.
Are we at the beginning of Donald Trump’s global trade war?
In Ireland 30 per cent of car sales are second-hand imports, mainly from the UK, which are not affected by the EU regulatory regime. To stimulate greater EV ownership it would make sense for the new Government to tax second-hand imports of fossil fuel cars and use the revenue to subsidise second-hand EVs, argues John FitzGerald in his weekly column.
Irish personal loans rose by 21.5 per cent on the year to a record quarterly figure of €670 million in the three months to September, driven by credit for cars and home improvements, according to the most recent Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) personal loans report.
A total of 62,598 personal loans were drawn down during the period, representing an increase of 17.2 per cent in volume. Joe Brennan reports.
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