Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock

This week’s guest on Inside Business is Leo Crawford, who recently stepped down as the head of BWG Group after nearly 40 years with the business.BWG is a wholesale group at heart that supplies groceries to a large network of shops in Ireland and the southwest of England under a variety of retail brands, including Spar, Eurospar, Mace and Londis.Leo will recall the boom times of the Celtic Tiger years, through a couple of management-led buyouts, to almost losing control of the business post the 2008 crash.BWG ultimately bounced back to become the €2 billion a year business that it is today.He also has some tips for young business leaders and entrepreneurs, you’ll hear him compare retailing in Ireland and the UK and prices on both sides of the Irish sea, and talk about the growing levels of shop lifting and abuse targeted against small retailers and how these might be tackled.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

This week host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by Dublin publican and Managing Director of Grand Slam Bars, Noel Anderson.The pub group is jointly owned by former Irish rugby internationals Rob Kearney, his brother David, Jamie Heaslip and Sean O’Brien.They own the Bridge bar in Ballsbridge, the Blackrock pub in the Dublin coastal suburb, the Lemon & Duke and Little Lemon in the city centre and its most recent purchase, McSorley’s in Ranelagh.Noel is also a shareholder in the Changing Times Brewery set up by a group of leading Irish publicans to produce a range of local stouts and other beers.Noel’s career in the pub trade began as a teenager and has involved a number of highs and lows. This included allegations of money laundering at one of his former venues, which yielded a financial settlement but only after years of legal wrangling. He talks to me about that extraordinary case, along with the current challenges of running pubs in Ireland and securing insurance against Covid lockdowns just weeks before the pandemic hit here.We also discuss the rising price of a pint and taking on Guinness in the stout market, and why he feels Dublin city centre needs an extra 1000 Gardai on the street to counter anti-social behaviour.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

Earlier this month, Red Flag Global, an Irish-based strategic communications firm was acquired by New York-based Ankura Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm.The financial details weren’t revealed but it is understood that the price tag on the deal was €45 million.Founded in 2013 by Karl Brophy, the company was chaired by Gavin O’Reilly, son of Tony O’Reilly and a former chief executive of Independent News & Media.Karl joins host Ciarán Hancock on this episode of the Inside Business podcast to discuss his career that began as a Fine Gael press officer before stints covering politics for the Daily Mirror and the Irish Examiner.He later went to work as a journalist and editor with INM, including a six-year stint editing an edgy tabloid title in South Africa.In January 2011 he was appointed as Director of Corporate Affairs and Content Development at INM, reporting to Gavin O’Reilly.It was a turbulent period in the history of the company, with a well-publicised battle for control of the business between the O’Reilly family and Denis O’Brien, who became a major shareholder.Karl left INM in October 2012, setting up Red Flag just months later.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

In the past week, Taoiseach Micheal Martin has suggested that the Rent Pressure Zone system could be scrapped and that tax breaks could be introduced to help incentivise developers to build more apartments and houses.Would these measures make rents more affordable for tenants? Or boost the supply of affordable new homes?To tease out this tricky political issue, Inside Business host Ciarán Hancock was joined in studio by Dublin-based estate agent Owen Reilly and on the line by Michelle Norris, who is director of the Geary Institute for Public Policy at UCD and was a member of the Housing Commission.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

At the start of this week US President Donald Trump took the global economy into uncharted territory by threatening a multi-front trade war.After last-minute negotiations on Monday, hefty tariffs for Canada and Mexico were suspended for 30 days. China then saw a 10% duty imposed on their imports into the US and retaliated soon after with their own tariffs on US energy and vehicles.The EU is also in Donald Trump’s sights, but it is unclear as to what kind of concessions he will want. Ireland is quite exposed in all this as bilateral trade with the US is hugely important - what could this all mean for our main exports and our country’s foreign direct investment?To get into the potential ramifications for Ireland and the wider global economy, host Cliff Taylor is joined by Irish Times Economic Correspondent, Eoin Burke-Kennedy, Irish Times China Correspondent, Denis Staunton and Professor of International Politics at the Clinton Institute in UCD, Scott Lucas.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

On Monday, markets were in meltdown when it emerged that a Chinese app called DeepSeek had developed a low-cost AI technology that can compete with those of US giants but at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the computing power. So, who is behind DeepSeek? And what is the future for the huge valuations on Big Tech and data centre stocks in the US and Europe?For some insight on this, host Ciarán Hancock was joined by Ciara O’Brien of the Irish Times and Aidan Donnelly, head of Global equities at Davy.Earlier this week, the State sold another 5 per cent of its holding in AIB. This reduced taxpayers’ holdings to 12.5 per cent in the Irish lender, which was bailed out by the State post the 2008 financial crash. Why has the State decided to sell more shares in AIB? What do we know of Paschal Donohoe’s plan for the remaining 12.5 per cent stake? What about the cap on pay and bonuses? Joe Brennan of the Irish Times covered the story and joined us on the line to explain.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

Karen Clince is CEO of Tigers Childcare, one of the biggest providers in the Irish market with 22 centres in Dublin, Cork, Kildare and Meath. She joins host Ciarán Hancock to explain the economics of running a childcare facility and give her view on proposals from the new Government to boost the sector.And Laura Slattery of the Irish Times talks us through the findings of a survey from Dublin Chamber which shows how the childcare crisis is limiting the ability of companies to recruit and retain staff, especially women, with a fifth of all companies describing it as the primary barrier to doing so.Plus, the World Economic Forum kicked off on Monday in the Swiss resort of Davos with many leading business and political leaders assembling to discuss the big global issues of the day.It’s fair to say that Donald Trump’s return to the White House overshadowed all of that. The new US president hit the ground running, issuing more than 100 executive orders on his first day in office and pulling the US from the OECD’s global corporate tax deal.That deal is very important to Ireland and could put us on a collision course with Trump’s new administration.Irish Times Economics Correspondent Eoin Burke-Kennedy joins Ciarán on the line from Davos to go through the event’s main talking points thus far.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

Last week a high-profile residential property scheme for Dundrum village in Dublin, that would have delivered 881 apartments and a mix of commercial units, was rejected by An Bord Pleanála. The scheme had first been proposed in 2021 by Hammerson and Allianz who between them owned the land. In a rejection letter the board was strong in its language noting the excessive density, height and scale, together with its “monolithic appearance”. And that it would have had an overbearing impact on neighbouring residential properties. This decision prompted Cliff Taylor of the Irish Times to write a column on the issue and its relevance to the housing crisis here. He joins host Ciarán Hancock on this week’s episode of Inside Business. Also joining the show is Tom Phillips, an experienced planning consultant who has been involved in a number of large development applications, but not the one for Dundrum. He gives his thoughts on how the planning system works, the role of planning consultants, and the contradictions in the current system that are holding us back as we seek to break the log jam of the housing crisis.Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.

Figures for 2024 showed a 1 per cent decline in total car sales across the Irish market versus 2023. But the number of electric vehicles sold reduced by almost 24 per cent with just 17,459 registered. This is against the backdrop of a government target to have one million EVs on Irish roads by 2030 as we phase out the use of fossil fuels.Neil Briscoe writes extensively about motoring for the Irish Times and he joined host Ciarán Hancock on the line to go through some of the affordable options for those looking to buy, and explain why sales of EVs went into reverse last year.In part two of the podcast, we hear from Conor Hanley, chief executive and president of Fire1, an Irish MedTech company that this week raised $120million to fund final clinical stage trials in the US for a device which helps monitor heart failure. He joined Ciarán in studio to explain why he thinks the technology is a major breakthrough for the many millions of people who suffer from this potentially life-threatening condition. Produced by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound.