Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock

On this week’s episode of Inside Business, host Cliff Taylor is joined in studio by Louisa Earls, manager of Books Upstairs, along with Laura Caffrey, & Clare Grennan, Co-Owners of Irish Design Shop, to get an insight into their experience as independent retailers in Dublin city during a period of the year that accounts for up to a third of their annual sales.Louisa discusses the pivot Books Upstairs made towards online sales during the early days of Covid, the titles that have flown off the shelves this year, competing with Amazon and what the government could do better to protect small independent businesses operating in the city.Laura and Clare from Irish Design Shop explain the challenges of starting a business in the teeth of the financial crash in late 2008, stocking products from over 60 Irish designers in its Drury Street shop, soaring tourist trade and why so many online orders are now coming from suburban Dublin. All three guests highlight the surge in shoplifting and why it is so difficult to combat.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

With the Irish government rolling in clover like never before, what is the outsider’s view of our economy? Max Colchester, Britain Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, has been writing about this following his recent visit to Dublin. He notes how other governments around Europe are struggling and raising taxes while we have set up two sovereign wealth funds to make good use of the billions in corporate tax receipts that continue to roll in – something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Donald Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick.He joins host Cliff Taylor to discuss the envious position Ireland finds itself in.Also on this episode, Irish Times Consumer Affairs Correspondent Conor Pope digs into whether the onslaught of advertised bargains for Black Friday are as good as they sound. Why do sales now start weeks before Black Friday? Can I get the same bargains during the year? And does buyer’s remorse and this annual event go hand in hand?Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound. 

Donald Trump’s stance on imports coming into the US could have very real implications for Irish transatlantic trade.September proved to be a record month for Irish exports, as well as a record level of exports going to the US. This underlines the importance of a market that could be jeopardised if the president-elect follows through on his promise to introduce blanket tariffs on goods entering the US.Carol Lynch is customs and trade partner with BDO Ireland and she joined host Cliff Taylor to give some insight into what those tariffs could do to the Republic’s largest export market outside of the EU, and how Irish companies have already started preparations to manage those impacts. Cathal Foley and his company PACE won the sustainability and overall prize at the 2024 Irish Times Innovation awards.PACE stands for Platform for Analysing Carbon Emissions, specifically airline carbon emissions. The aviation sector has set an ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2050, something that is likely to cost around five trillion dollars. Cathal explained how PACE aims to help the sector achieve that target.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.   

Research from online broker Doddl.ie has estimated that savings of about €7,400 a year could be achieved by switching your mortgage rate. Martina Hennessey is chief executive of Doddl.ie and she joined host Ciarán Hancock to go through the maths on this. She also explained how the most attractive rates available apply to those with the most energy efficient homes.In the past week, the US stock market has surged following Donald’s Trump’s election victory. Donnacha Fox is chief investment officer at Quilter Cheviot and joined Ciarán in studio to explain why US stocks and crypto have spiked since it became clear that Trump was heading back to the White House.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

After a remarkable political comeback, Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. So, what will that mean for the Irish economy, given that he has threatened huge tariffs on imports and promised to slash its corporate tax rate.Host Ciarán Hancock is joined by Cliff Taylor of The Irish Times to get his view on how bad a Trump presidency could be for Ireland.Also on the show, Conor Pope of The Irish Times explains why being single can cost you more than €300,000 over and above what a person in a couple will pay over the course of their adults lives, taking into account areas like housing, groceries, and taxes. Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

This week’s episode looks at the housing crisis from a slightly quirky angle.Imagine if Michael O’Leary decided to set up a development company to build housing and applied some of the lessons from Ryanair’s experience in disrupting the air travel business over the past three decades.It’s a point that Irish Times economics correspondent Eoin Burke Kennedy posited in a column earlier this week. Could a no-frills approach reduce construction costs that could in turn be passed on to home buyers?Paul Mitchell, director of construction consultancy Mitchell McDermott and an expert on construction costs, also joins the podcast to give his thoughts on potential solutions to ease the housing crisis in the coming years. Mitchell McDermott recently produced a cost study report on behalf of the Department of Housing, contained in which is the eye-watering figure of €600,000 now necessary to build a two-bedroom urban apartment.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

In his recent piece for the Irish Times, Harry Goddard, CEO of Big Four firm Deloitte, argues that Ireland needs to build more data centres. He says this could generate the demand for a sufficient number of renewable energy projects to be built to help those facilities operate on a carbon neutral basis.He joins Inside Business host Ciarán Hancock to explain why more data centres need to be built here, despite the large amount of electricity and water necessary to run them and the relatively small amount of people employed by them.Also on the podcast, Eoin Burke Kennedy of The Irish Times outlines five key battlegrounds in the upcoming general election, which we now know will be held this year. He cites housing, spending overruns, the cost-of-living crisis, interest rates, and business failures.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

These are some very challenging times for retail and hospitality here, with news this week that men’s fashion retailer Alias Tom was placed into liquidation while high profile Dublin restaurant Shanahan’s on St Stephen’s Green closed, and Dillinger’s in Ranelagh will close in November after 16 years in operation.On Tuesday, hundreds of hospitality, tourism, retail, and other small business owners protested in Dublin outside Leinster House about the increasing costs of doing business here, with many of those costs being Government imposed. The Restaurant Association of Ireland was one of the groups that organised that protest, and its CEO Adrian Cummins joins Inside Business host Ciarán Hancock to discuss the key issues raised at the protest, while Eoin Burke Kennedy of The Irish Times explains the backdrop to Alias Tom’s winding up this week.At the end of last month, the Government announced that the much talked about auto enrolment private sector pension scheme would finally come into effect in September 2025.A report in the Irish Independent suggested there could be a tax sting in the tail for those workers, following the release of the Finance Bill last week. Dominic Coyle, The Irish Times resident pensions expert, outlines what’s being proposed in the Finance Bill for auto enrolment.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

According to PwC’s quarterly insolvency barometer, the retail sector now accounts for one in four of all insolvencies so far this year. Hospitality is also being adversely affected with smaller operators more likely to fail.Inside Business host Ciarán Hancock is joined by Ken Tyrrell, business recovery partner at PwC Ireland, to go through their research and get a handle on how many more insolvencies are potentially in the pipeline as we head towards 2025.Also on this week’s episode, Irish Times Work Correspondent Emmet Malone talks us through two industrial disputes affecting some big-name multinationals here with members of trade union Connect deferring a 24-hour work stoppage at a Meta data centre in Clonee on Monday. And separately, Unite trade union has warned of more pickets being placed on selected large construction sites around the country after strikes at an Intel site in Kildare. Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.