A round-up of today's other business stories in brief.

Eircom to invest €10m in upgrade

Eircom has entered a €10 million contract with Siemens and ADVA Optical Networks for the the first phase of a project to significantly upgrade the capacity of its core telecoms network.

The three-year contract to start work on a next generation network is the first since the former State telephone company promised a fortnight ago to increase its capital expenditure by €300 million to €1 billion in 2007-09.

NTR chief warns of 'energy crisis'

Jim Barry, chief executive of road, waste and energy group NTR, has urged the Government to take the issue of energy supply more seriously or face shortages in the future.

"Ireland is sleepwalking its way into an energy crisis," he told an audience in Dublin yesterday, to hear about a conference looking at the impact of an imminent peak in oil supplies.

He urged the Government to take up the issue as part of its election pledge. Considering Ireland was at the end of a 3,000km pipeline from Siberia, not enough was being done to promote other energy sources, he said.

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas conference will be held in UCC in September 2007.

Passenger figures rise at Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus carried 760,000 passengers in October, 6.1 per cent more than in the same month last year. The company says the figure was affected by a slowdown in advance bookings following the terrorism alert in the UK during the summer.

Short-haul passengers rose by 8.2 per cent, while the load factor on these routes was 73.8 per cent, down 2.2 percentage points on October 2005. The number of long-haul passengers fell 5.8 per cent, with a 5.7 percentage-point decline in the load factor, to 73.8 per cent.

For the 10 months to October, the former State airline carried 7.3 million passengers, an increase of 8 per cent on the year-earlier period.

Alltracel placing to raise £1.2m

Pharmaceutical group Alltracel is raising £1.2 million (€1.8 million) through the sale of 11.7 million shares to expand its oral care division.

In a statement to the stock exchange yesterday, Alltracel said the placing, which is not subject to shareholder approval, would enable it to accelerate growth at its the unit both organically and through acquisition.

Cavan firm to put €11m into R&D

Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment Micheál Martin has announced that Cavan- based Foamalite Ltd is to invest €11 million in a new R&D facility and purpose- built factory.

Foamalite, which manufactures and exports foam PVC sheets, expects that the investment will lead to the creation of 26 jobs over the next three years, five of which will be "high value" R&D roles. Foamalite will also receive support from Enterprise Ireland's scaling division.

Linders buys €36m Smithfield site

Dublin property developer Joe Linders has bought the former headquarters of the Irish Distillers at Smithfield, Dublin, for about €36 million.

The building stands on a site of 1.08 acres with frontage onto three streets. There is planning permission for an office block of 16,053sq m (172,793sq ft), along with 10 ground floor retail units and two levels of car parking.