Associated British Foods has today reported a near doubling in first-half profit but said its Primark clothing business would have to raise prices because of the severe inflationary pressures it was facing. The group said today that inflationary pressures were such that it is unable to offset them all with cost savings, and so Primark…

Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter has attracted massive attention around the world. Here at home, the latest developments are no doubt being watched closely by the company’s Irish staff. The social media platform employs more than 500 people at its European Headquarters in Dublin. What will the change of ownership mean for…

Business group Ibec has scaled back its outlook for growth for this year to account for the economic impact of rising costs and supply chain challenges, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The group estimates that the war will knock somewhere between 1 and 2 percentage points off the rate of growth relative to…

EU member states, the European Commission, and the European Parliament have reached agreement on new rules requiring large tech companies to do more to police illegal content on their platforms and to pay a fee to regulators monitoring their compliance. The agreement came after more than 16 hours of negotiations. The Digital Services Act (DSA)…

The dramatic increase in energy prices in recent months has brought sharp focus to the need for businesses to cut their usage – fast. The biggest changes generally require a significant up-front outlay – something that may take years to see a return on. Against a backdrop of rising costs across-the-board, and growing uncertainty about…

New figures from the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation suggests that the sector continued to recover in March – traditionally the period that kick-starts the tourism season with the Saint Patrick’s Festival. The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation’s Tourism Dashboard is published in association with AIB and compares each month to the same month in 2019, the…

Consumer confidence suffered its second successive sharp monthly drop as concerns about living costs that hurt the macro economic outlook in March spread into a weakening of spending plans in April. The KBC Bank Ireland consumer sentiment index dropped to 57.7 from 67. This was an almost identical fall to that from February to March,…

15% of small and medium sized businesses in Ireland are considering laying off some staff when the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) comes to an end – due to rising costs and falling profitability. That is according to new research by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Grant Thornton. They surveyed 200 finance…

Oil prices rebounded this morning from sharp losses in the previous session as concerns about tighter supplies from Russia and Libya dominated, while industry data showed a drop in US crude inventories last week. Brent crude futures rose 66 cents, or 0.6%, to $107.91 a barrel in early trade. The front-month WTI crude futures contract,…

Parents will receive five days of unpaid leave to look after sick children under new legislation to be signed off at Cabinet today. Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman is bringing a draft of a new Work-Life Balance Bill aimed at providing more family friendly workplaces. This new bill will bring the European Union’s work-life balance…