A round-up of the rest of today's business stories in brief

Killarney hotel firm to cease trading

Fifty jobs, including 30 full-time positions, are to go tomorrow when the company which runs a 300-bedroom hotel and almost 90 new holiday apartments and leisure centre at the Quality Hotel complex in Killarney, Co Kerry, ceases trading.

However, union officials said they are hopeful a new operator will be found for the recently revamped hotel complex.

The company, Carvanna Properties Ltd, had run the former Ryan Hotel for the past five years.

Staff were told at a meeting yesterday that the directors had decided to put the company into liquidation because of trading and financial difficulties. A creditors’ meeting is to be held on January 30th.

Intel warns on weaker margins

Computer chip giant Intel has declined to predict future sales in an uncertain economic environment and warned of rapidly deteriorating margins as its production lines ran on reduced capacity.

The world’s biggest chipmaker kicked off what seems certain to be a grim earnings season for technology companies by reporting a 90 per cent fall in profits and a drop in revenues it said was unprecedented in the past 20 years.

Intel, which employs 4,000 people in Ireland both directly and through outside contracting firms, said fourth-quarter profits were $234 million, down from $2.3 billion a year earlier. – (Financial Times service)

Training project to create 60 jobs

Sixty new jobs are to be created over the next two years in the Donegal Gaeltacht. Feidhm na Mara Teoranta (Effective Offshore Training) is establishing a base for training workers on offshore oil and gas rigs. It will provide courses in basic offshore survival induction and emergency training.

The venture is being backed by Údarás na Gaeltachta, which is contributing €150,000, and will be the first centre of its kind in Ireland.

Norbrook fined over permits

Norbrook Laboratories has been found guilty at Newry Magistrates’ Court of eight charges of operating three incinerators without the necessary permits.

The company has been fined £1,000 plus £205 court costs and witness costs of £2,963.32 for one charge and given a conditional discharge for the other seven charges.

The company was also granted bail on appeal of £500.

Norbrook was fined for operating three incinerators at its Station Works, Armagh Road and Carnbane Industrial Estate sites in Newry without the necessary permits, on eight separate occasions.

Norbrook claimed the incinerators were not covered by the Pollution Prevention and Control legislation.

Exports decline in euro zone

Euro zone exports fell almost 5 per cent in November as a result of the slowdown in global growth, with Germany particularly exposed.

Exports from euro zone member countries dropped 4.7 per cent month on month, extending a 2.8 per cent fall in October, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. – (Financial Times service)

Former director faces tax charges

A former courier company director is facing trial by judge and jury after a District Court judge deemed that a case being brought against him for Revenue offences was too serious to be dealt with at District Court level.

Judge Michael Pattwell refused jurisdiction in the case of 12 of the 40 charges being brought by the Revenue Commissioners against Gerard Barrett, of the Paddocks, Castleredmond, Midleton, Co Cork when Mr Barrett appeared at Midleton District Court.