Garret FitzGerald on The State of Europe, Saturday, RTE 1.
Garret FitzGerald discusses EU enlargement with Eamonn Lawlor on The State of Europe (Saturday, 9 a.m., RTE1).
On The Real Deal (Sunday, 7.35 p.m., Channel 4) young entrepreneurs get the chance to convert their business ideas into hard cash. This week three entrepreneurs hoping to be the next big thing on the Web pitch their ideas to wired-world guru Ivan Pope.
Throughout the week BBC2's Working Lunch (12 noon), its business, consumer and personal finance show, brings the news from the world of money. It covers everything from mis-sold pensions to share dealing problems.
If you are paying extra cash for a non-shed Christmas tree you're being ripped off says Hard Cash - Christmas Unwrapped (Monday, 7.30 p.m., BBC1). The programme shakes up the Christmas tree to see if there is such a thing as a "non-drop fir".
Some rural communities have been forgotten by the boom economy and this week Ear To The Ground (Monday, 8.30 p.m., RTE1) visits East Kerry where many small farmers are struggling to keep families on less than £8,000 (€1,015) a year. Areas like this still have little employment, low incomes and a disappearing population and the programme asks what the future holds for them.
It also reports on how artificial insemination is being brought into the future by using WAP technology. Dairygold Artificial Insemination centre has a new call centre in Mallow, Co Cork, which takes calls from farmers across the catchment area. Farmers ring an 1850 number and an operator sends the details to a technician on the road in a text message. It's now faster and easier to handle the volume of incoming calls in the peak season when up to 2,000 are processed each day.
On the eve of the millennium the world went dot.com crazy. After a while the gloss wore off the shiny new technology as the fortunes proved often to be as virtual as the websites. Cutting Edge: Easy Money (Tuesday, 9 p.m., Channel 4) follows three e-businesses through this dramatic roller-coaster ride.
sokelly@irish-times.ie
