Home loan costs rise; Cairn gets Montrose green light; and Uniphar blocked

Mortgage holders face an unwelcome Christmas bill after the European Central Bank raised interest rates for the fourth time in the past six months – by half a percentage point. Around 300,000 tracker mortgage holders will be the first affected, writes Eoin Burke-Kennedy.

Cairn Homes has secured permission from Dublin City Council for its revised mixed-use plan for the former RTÉ lands at Montrose, where it plans to construct 688 apartments, despite the objections of local residents.

Ireland’s competition watchdog has blocked the multimillion euro takeover by Dublin-listed healthcare services group Uniphar of pharmacy solutions business NaviCorp, the first time in a decade that an Irish takeover has been blocked on competition grounds, writes Joe Brennan.

A British business of developer Sean Mulryan took a €41 million hit for fire safety costs last year, writes Barry O’Halloran, after it signed up to a “developers’ pledge” in the UK, guaranteeing that apartment owners or occupiers in blocks it has built or refurbished over the last 30 years, will not have to pay to ensure the structures meet new fire safety rules in the wake of the Grenfell disaster.

Helping offshore energy developers factor the impact on nature into their planning process

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Google Pixel 8a review: It follows predecessors by removing unnecessary features while still being useful

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Interruptions undermine workplace focus and productivity

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It seems an improbable odyssey for London to ever become the new Silicon Valley

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Victims of the collapse of Custom House Capital have yet to be paid €751,455, according to the Investor Compensation Company’s annual report. Ian Curran reports that the agency paid out €3.6 million in claims this year, bringing to €10.9 million the amount paid out to date with just 173 of more than 2,000 claims still outstanding.

John FitzGerald argues that optimism bias is clearly clouding the judgment of some supporters of a united Ireland when it comes to addressing who will pay for the costs of any break-up of the UK.

Agenda examines the ongoing shortages of medicines in Ireland and further afield as GP surgeries and pharmacies contend with a surge of winter infections made worse by two years of Covid lockdown.

World of work says middle managers will be looking forward to Christmas respite more than most as they are suffering the highest levels of stress in the workplace as they juggle the expectations of both superiors and staff in a world of hybrid and remote work, with very little guidance.

And in Caveat, Mark Paul considers how in Ireland’s booming economy we can still have such a poverty issue that even the Capuchin Centre’s Christmas hamper appeal is mobbed.

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