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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has moved to reassure the public about the stability of Irish banks as shares in lenders around the world plunged again on Wednesday amid heightened concerns about embattled Swiss lender Credit Suisse, following the collapse last week of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States. Joe Brennan and Martin Wall in Washington report.
A property business founded by a former financial adviser to Lord Alan Sugar has taken full control of a Dublin hotel that houses more than 300 asylum seekers on behalf of the State, reports Simon Carswell. Dadac Limited, the UK company where Lord Sugar’s former aide Colin Sandy is a director, had receivers appointed to the Ibis Red Cow Hotel off the well-known M50 intersection. The State contract to accommodate the international protection applicants is a lucrative arrangement for the hotel, worth an estimated €700,000-€800,000 a month.
With the cost of living rising and continuing to put the pinch on consumers, it’s time to start taking a hard look at your services and what you are spending on them every month, writes Ciara O’Brien. Mobile phones have become a big part of our everyday lives. More than two decades ago landlines were a common fixture in Irish homes; that has been declining in recent years and now voice traffic on fixed lines is a fraction of the mobile minutes that Irish consumers are clocking up.
Is the cost-of-living crisis over? According to the head of Ibec, it never happened
Can power-hungry data centres help our green energy targets?
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
Christmas tech for kids: great gift ideas with safety features for parental peace of mind
Karlin Lillington, in her weekly column marvels at Big Tech’s ability to be libertarian when times are good but socialist when times are tough. while Chris Horn wonders did a ‘winner takes all’ culture in the tech industry lead to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank?
The rising cost of living may have made consumers more money conscious, but they still want to enjoy the little pleasures in life such as good coffee and a nice perfume. That said, a 100ml bottle of a designer scent could set you back more than €200 and very often the bottles never get finished. This prompted 24-year-old Kerry man Niall Brennan to set up SimpleScents, a subscription-based service for designer fragrances. Olive Keogh reports.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week has spooked financial markets, with global banking stocks dropping significantly as a result. Fears of contagion have spread, given that it is the largest bank failure in the US since the 2008 financial crash. With a new CEO, Tim Mayopoulos, at the helm, SVB is declaring ‘business as usual’, but the ripple effects of the bank’s failure can still be felt. To discuss the backdrop to the bank run and the wider implications on markets and the tech sector, Ciarán Hancock is joined by Irish Times columnist Chris Horn and Markets Correspondent Joe Brennan on our Inside Business podcast.
Cantillon finds that the property industry here insists on Irish exceptionalism. Because of the mismatch between supply and demand, they insist the drag from higher interest rates won’t be enough to trigger a reversal in prices, like the ones we’re seeing in the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (the list goes on). Cantillon also says that the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank is not another Lehman’s crisis. Yet.
Digital photography is great for kids. They can snap away to their heart’s content, experimenting with photos and without incurring any cost – for the parent. But you don’t want to hand over an expensive camera to a small child – or even your smartphone, as some of us have found out to our cost. Ciara O’Brien looks at one solution, MyFirst Camera Insta Wi.
