In breaking news this morning, French insurance giant Axa has agreed to buy Laya Healthcare, the Republic’s second-largest health insurer, from a unit of US rival AIG, in a deal worth €650 million. Joe Brennan has the story.
Bullish corporation tax, income tax and VAT returns have meanwhile delivered record seven-month tax revenue of just under €48 billion, boosting Government resources as it frames Budget 2024 against a background of pressure for further cost-of-living measures. Eoin Burke-Kennedy has the details.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear with “expedition” an appeal by two local residents against the dismissal of their challenge to 2020 permission for the construction of 416 homes on land adjacent to the former Player Wills site off Dublin’s South Circular Road. Developer Hines says there is a real risk that any further delay will undermine the scheme which in 2020 secured planning permission that is valid for five years.
And Permanent TSB has joined its two larger Irish banking rivals in upgrading full-year financial forecasts amid ongoing central bank rate hikes. Joe Brennan reports that the lender increased its share of mortgage lending in the first half of the year against a background of slowing mortgage market growth.
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Global software company Salesforce, which announced plans to cut 200 Irish jobs earlier this year, has now decided to axe up to a further 50 posts from its Irish workforce. Ellen O’Regan reports.
Telecoms regulator ComReg has announced that it is working with mobile operators to safeguard customers and assessing scam filters as it disclosed that scam texts and calls are costing Irish consumers and businesses up to €300 million a year. Sarah Slater reports.
Those consumers are also spending €1.3 billion on video streaming services this year, up by more than a third in a little under two years, according to a survey commissioned by Pure Telecom. But, writes Ian Curran they are also increasingly likely to cancel subscriptions to cut costs.
Ahead of the August bank holiday, Ryanair has announced that it carried a record 18.7 million passengers in July, writes Barry O’Halloran.
In Innovation, Neil Briscoe writes that embedding charging technology in roads could prove the answer to concerns about driving range for electric cars.
And new recruitment portal GAAWorks is looking to tap into Ireland’s largest sporting community to help match jobs with people who want to stay in their local community.
Finally, Karlin Lillington tries to get her head around the concept of a fediverse – a cluster of social network services united by common networking protocols that allow users of one service to communicate with those on other services.
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