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Web Summit turmoil; a very costly sandwich; and why mothers don’t come back to work

The best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

Web Summit will proceed next month as planned, a spokesman said, following the resignation of chief executive Paddy Cosgrave. Photograph: Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP via Getty Images

Dominic Coyle's face
Dominic Coyle
Mon Oct 23 2023 - 06:31

Web Summit will proceed in Lisbon next month as planned, a spokesman said, despite the abrupt resignation of chief executive and cofounder Paddy Cosgrave over the weekend that sees the event group scrambling to limit the damage from his poorly-received comments on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Jack Power has the latest.

“You can’t lie in a bank, unless it’s a really big lie.” That was the response of one person to news that Citi – a bank estimated to have incurred misconduct costs of more than €15 billion – fired a senor analyst for gross misconduct over a claim for a lunchtime sandwich and coffee. Pilita Clark examines the fraught area of expenses and fraud

Failure to persuade Irish mothers back into the workforce has left Ireland with the third-highest level of market income inequality – gender different in pretax income – in the industrialised world in 2021, according to the OECD. Eoin Burke-Kennedy writes that the blame can be laid at the high cost of childcare.

Central Bank boss Gabriel Makhlouf has sought to calm concerns in the financial services industry that any introduction of a digital euro would hit bank savings and raise the cost of borrowing, saying the ECB will involve the industry at the design stage of its plans, writes Cliff Taylor.

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More than half of Irish and international business leaders believe generative artificial intelligence (AI) could cause “catastrophic cyber attacks” in the next 12 months, according to PwC’s latest digital trust insights survey. Eoin Burke-Kennedy writes that it comes as companies are already reporting a sharp jump in costly data breaches.

Figures from the Revenue Commissioners show that just under 60,000 Irish businesses which availed of Revenue’s pandemic-era debt warehousing scheme still owe a total of €1.9 billion, with just 10 per cent of those businesses being responsible for 85 per cent of the money owing.

The Construction Industry Federation says that 2024 could see the biggest buildout of new homes in Ireland since the Celtic Tiger era, as long as An Bord Pleanála uses the additional resources recently earmarked for it to speed up its delivery on planning decisions.

In Opinion, Irish Tourism Industry Confederation chief Eoghan O’Mara Walsh reflects the bemusement and concern of the tourism sector at what it sees as a Government that seems to have lost interest in a sector still in fragile recovery and facing a €2 billion financial hit next year.

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