Business

Apple has announced plans to build an €850m data centre in Athenry, Co Galway. The company also said it will spend another €850m on a data centre in Denmark’s central Jutland. The two centres, which represent Apple’s most significant projects in Europe to date, will operate on 100pc renewable energy and power the company’s online services, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps, and Siri for customers across Europe. The Apple Marketing Strategy is finally taking root in Ireland. The centres, each measuring 166,000 sq m, are expected to begin operations in 2017 and, according to Apple, include designs with additional benefits for their communities. In Athenry, Apple will recover land previously used…

Record bookings on Ryanair’s new US website Ryanair has reported record bookings from American customers following the launch of its new US Ryanair website in December, which enables flight bookings to be made in dollars. Bookings from the US have increased by almost 50pc in the two months since www.ryanair.com/us went live. London Stansted–Dublin is the most popular route for US visitors, followed by Edinburgh–Dublin, Rome–Barcelona, Paris–Dublin and Frankfurt Hahn–London Stansted, with the most bookings coming from customers living in California, New York, Texas, Florida and New Jersey. “Ryanair launched a dedicated American version of the Ryanair.com website to make it easier for US customers to book Europe’s lowest fares,” said…

Irish Water said today that it has signed a €100m loan facility with Ulster Bank in the first in a series of loan agreements expected to be agreed with other domestic and international banks in the coming weeks. The company said its long term funding plan is progressing well, and will enable it to finance the significant investment that is required in the water network. “The ability to access private sector financing in order to invest in improving Ireland’s water infrastructure was a key reason for the establishment of Irish Water,” said Ervia group finance director, Michael O’Sullivan. “The funds we are borrowing will be used to address decades of…

Recent figures show there has been a six-fold increase in the number of direct selling parties in Ireland over the past year. These parties are seeing a major surge in popularity according to the Direct Selling Association of Ireland (DSAI), the trade body for the industry.
 
Direct selling is where goods are sold direct to consumers outside of a fixed shop. Parties allow sellers to showcase their products in a client’s home, from kitchen equipment to cosmetics and jewellery. Those attending have the opportunity to try out the products and purchase in a social environment. Parties now account for 20pc of total direct selling revenue in Ireland, with more people than…

Passenger numbers going through Shannon Airport increased by 17pc last year, reaching 1.64 million, up from 1.4 million in 2013. The airport said this growth was achieved on the back of 10 new destinations and 16 service enhancements overall in 2014. The biggest growth market was in European services, where nine new destinations delivered a 70pc increase (from 251,813 to 427,887).  The airport said that these new services included a number of popular sun destinations, but the growth also came from high numbers of inbound visitors as a result of the return of links to Germany (Munich and Berlin) as well new French (Paris and Poitiers) services, markets with a…

Dublin remains in the number two spot for the second year running for real estate investment and development in Europe, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2015, a forecast published jointly by the Urban Land Institute and PwC. Ranking Berlin in the number one position, the report states that Dublin has strong rental growth potential based on low supply, coupled with employment growth. According to Real Capital Analytics , a tremendous amount of capital has poured into Dublin already, €2.2bn in the first three-quarters of 2014. Though office rents and values are recovering strongly, they still have some way to go before they regain their pre-crisis peak. Enda Faughnan, real estate…

The world’s largest supplier of networking products Cisco is to invest €200,000 in a big data joint venture with Irish data management solutions company Asystec. It will involve Asystec delivering its methodology and expertise in data analytics while Cisco delivers infrastructure and expertise to provide a complete big data solution. “Corporate partnerships are fuelling the growth of the world’s most successful companies as the demand to provide new innovative products that deliver on customers’ expectations increases,” said Asystec CEO Les Byrne. “We believe this partnership will be truly successful and will deliver unique value to our customers.” As well as the financial investment by Cisco, Asystec will be investing in…

Waste collection company, The City Bin Co has announced 30 new jobs to be created before Christmas in Dublin. The company said the roles are due to the expansion of its service into new areas including Finglas, East Wall, Coolock and Drumcondra. The roles are a combination of on street marketing and waste disposal staff. It is the second time the company has expanded its work force this year. Grainne Rothery

Vodafone customers in Waterford city have become the first people in Ireland to have access to 4G+ technology, which provides speeds up to twice as fast as first generation 4G. They will be followed by Vodafone customers in Cork, Dublin and Limerick by the end of this month who will be able to avail of data speeds of up to 150Mbps. 4G+ is available to Vodafone Red Super Business and Red Extra Super bill pay customers at no extra cost until April using one of three select Samsung 4G+ enabled smartphones. “Vodafone customers in Ireland already have access to the widest 4G footprint across six cities and 377 towns and…

University of Limerick A division of American health care giant Johnson & Johnson is to create up to 100 new IT jobs over the next two years through the creation of a development centre at the National Technology Park in Plassey, Co Limerick. Supported by IDA Ireland, the recruitment drive by the information technology shared services division will add to the 2,000 people that Johnson & Johnson already employs in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Minister of Education and Skills Jan O’Sullivan TD said the close collaboration between Johnson & Johnson, Limerick Institute of Technology and University of Limerick to enhance the city as an IT hub by providing skilled talent was central to winning this…