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Makhlouf warns against budget giveaway in letter to Chambers

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

Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland Gabriel Makhlouf. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

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Mark Hilliard
Fri Jul 5 2024 - 06:35

Central Bank governor Gabriel Makhlouf has called on Minister for Finance Jack Chambers to adhere to spending rules ahead of the upcoming budget. Joe Brennan and Pat Leahy report that, in a letter to Minister for Finance Jack Chambers, Mr Makhlouf said limiting expenditure to the growth rate of the economy, can be “an appropriate and credible anchor for fiscal policy.” The rule, regularly ignored, is designed to keep Exchequer spending growth to 5 per cent.

A former Marsh Ireland insurance broker has been banned from carrying out senior roles in regulated financial firms in the aftermath of a Central Bank investigation. Joe Brennan reveals how Liam Heffernan came under the spotlight for issues during his time with the company including “unauthorised creation and modification” of insurance documents. A prohibition notice now means Mr Heffernan is banned from carrying out any controlled functions in a regulated service provider “for an indefinite period”.

The Irish bank data processing group CreditLogic has raised €3.5 million to help fuel its expansion, Ciarán Hancock reports. Set up five-and-a-half years ago by Eddie Dillon and Gavin Bennett, its latest funding round includes backing from US institutional investor Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC), its first investment in Ireland. The company uses a SaaS platform it says “radically” simplifies the processing of client data for banks.

With legislation underpinning Ireland’s new auto-enrolment (AE) pension scheme now ready to be signed by President Higgins, Joe Brennan reports that the company who will ultimately run it is Indian information technology specialist Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The Department of Social Protection confirmed the selection of its preferred partner to build and run the system in a 10-year contract worth up to €150 million.

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For much of the postwar period, western European politics has been divided on how resources should be distributed but after decades of debate, a social democratic model has largely prevailed. In his column, John FitzGerald discusses the international scenarios, noting that in most EU countries the tax and welfare systems play a major role in redistributing wealth from the richest to the poorest. But how might economic inequality and poverty be addressed in the forthcoming election manifestos?

Who can forget the force of Taylor Swift’s recent three-night soirée at the Aviva, and the tales of all the money that would flow in behind her? In what will be music to the ears of retailers, Bank of Ireland’s Spending Pulse survey reveals, to an extent, just who spent what, and where. In total, reports Fiona Keeley, spending the capital rose by 17 per cent over the weekend.

Planning documents have shown Google’s planned new data centre for South Dublin will indirectly contribute 224,250 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. The tech company has said, reports Gordon Deegan, that if the project does not progress it will struggle to meet increasing demands for its services among Irish customers. It is the third phase of the Google Ireland data centre campus at Grange Castle Business Park.

Shares fell in Glenveagh Properties whose revenue for the six months to the end of June, dropped to €150 million from €172 million. The housebuilder said, however, that it remains on track to meet its building targets this year despite reporting a fall-off in earnings, Eoin Burke-Kennedy writes. Its price dropped 3.61 per cent to €1.28 at the close.

Chinese-made EVs have long been the object of western suspicion, given their potential to damage the prospects of European carmakers. The EU has now moved to impose varying tariffs that will, barring unforeseen changes, come into effect between Friday and next November. Under its anti-subsidy investigation, the EU has said it would apply provisional duties on three Chinese manufacturers that were sampled for the investigation.

In other China tech news, the chip-making giant Nvidia is on track to rake in $12 billion (€11.1 billion) from sales of its artificial intelligence technology in the country. Nvidia has been the golden child of tech companies in recent months thanks to its advances in chip production, and in the coming months the $3 trillion Silicon Valley group will deliver more than one million of its new H20 chips to Chinese customers. The products have been designed to fall outside US restrictions.

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