WHAT’S ALL this talk of Mary Coughlan being demoted? She’s gone from being the Minister of the Here and Now (Enterprise, Trade and Employment) to being the Minister for the Future (Education and Skills). Sounds like a promotion to me.
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In the spirit of fostering Celtic relations, RTÉ's Nuachtservice has agreed a reciprocal arrangement with Scottish broadcaster BBC Alba to carry news stories each day. BBC Alba was launched in 2008 and broadcasts in a form of Gaelic not dissimilar to that spoken here. "We'd like to extend the arrangement over time," Nuachtchief Michael Lally told me this week.
Nuachthas an annual budget of €5 million, employs about 50 staff and broadcasts around 50 minutes of Irish language news each day on RTÉ TV and radio and on TG4, with whom it now shares studio space in Baile na hAbhann, Galway.
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Accounts just published by the Irish arm of fashion retailer Miss Selfridge show it increased its profit here last year.
Miss Selfridge Retail (Ireland) Ltd posted a pre-tax profit of £642,000 in the year to the end of August 2009, compared with £429,000 a year earlier.
In its directors’ report the company said it was “optimistic” about growing its sales in Ireland in spite of the “highly-competitive” retailing environment here.
