Leadership

There were two developments that were particularly positive for Ireland’s debt dynamics in the first half of this year – the issue of our first ever 30-year bond and the completion of the early repayment of just over €18bn of Ireland’s IMF loan facility, according to National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) chief executive Conor O’Kelly. On the release of the NTMA’s 2014 annual report and mid-year update, he explained the early repayment of the IMF loan was made using cheaper, long-term market funding and generated interest savings of over €1.5bn. “The weighted average maturity of our long-term marketable and official debt has improved from 7.3 years at end 2012 to…

Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) has admitted to “multiple breaches of financial services law and regulation” and has entered into a settlement agreement with the Central Bank. The Central Bank said today that the settlement follows the conclusion of its “most significant and extensive regulatory investigation to date”. The investigation, which focused on INBS’s commercial lending and credit risk management processes, began in 2010.  It related to the building society and certain people involved in its management between 1 August 2004 and 30 September 2008. Between 2008 and 2010, INBS had losses of more than €6bn, mainly due to the impairment of its impaired loan book.  Under the National Asset…

Tech multinational EMC has developed an innovation platform from its Cork base specifically designed for industrial internet of things (IoT) development, in partnership with Vodafone Ireland. Involving an initial €2m investment and called Infinite, this is the first large-scale Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) approved industrial IoT innovation platform in Europe. The platform is spread across three data centres – those of EMC, Vodafone and data centre and cloud provider Cork Internet eXchange in Cork. IoT involves processes such as manufacturing to everyday objects, including household appliances and even clothing, containing sensors that are connected to the internet and generating data for analysis. Infinite encompasses all the significant technologies, domains and…

NUI Galway has today named the four recipients of its 2015 honorary degrees. The four, who will be conferred this Friday (12 June), are: Áine Brazil, vice chairman of Thornton Tomasetti, New York, USA; Billy Lawless, Chicago-based Galway-born businessman and vice-president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; Svante Pääbo, Swedish biologist and director at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany; and Phillip Smyth, director of the Shannon College of Hotel Management. NUI Galway president, Dr Jim Browne, said each has made an outstanding and distinctive contribution to the diverse fields of engineering, public life, genetic science and the international hospitality industry. Brazil will be…

The National Library of Ireland’s complete collection of Catholic parish register microfilms is to be made available online for free later this year. On 8 July, the NLI will launch a dedicated website with over 390,000 digital images of the microfilm reels on which the parish registers are recorded. The NLI said it has been working for over three years to digitise the microfilms. According to the NLI, the parish register records are considered the single most important source of information on Irish family history before the 1901 Census.  Dating from the 1740s to the 1880s, they cover 1,091 parishes throughout the island of Ireland, and consist mainly of baptismal…

EY has this week announced a new partnership with BioInnovate Ireland, a medical device innovation training programme based in NUI Galway and modelled on the Stanford Biodesign programme.

Total Produce plc has appointed DAA CEO Kevin Toland to its board as a non-executive director with effect from 1 July 2015. Before taking on his current role in 2013, Toland held senior executive positions with a number of multinational companies, including most recently chief executive and president of Glanbia USA & Global Nutritionals, based in Chicago. “Kevin is a successful and experienced CEO with international experience,” said Total Produce chairman, Carl McCann.  “His direct knowledge of North America is very relevant as we continue to expand our business. We look forward to his contribution to the further success and development of Total Produce plc.” Grainne Rothery

The National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI), which is part of Cork Institute of Technology, is the lead partner in the delivery of the Canary Islands’ first offshore survival training centre. A ceremony to mark the partnership will be held in Las Palmas tomorrow, 27 March, hosted by Conor Mowlds, head of the NMCI, in the presence of the Spanish Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism Jose Manual Soria and Ireland’s honorary consul in Gran Canaria Victor Aúz Castro. The NMCI and Co Cork company SEFtec are the lead consultants and manufacturers for the design, manufacture, development and operation of the Grupo Stier training centre in Las Palmas. Simon Coveney,…

With the Companies Act 2014 set to take effect on 1 June 2015, Ruairi Mulrean of LK Shields outlines the top 10 things every company director needs to know about it. After nearly a decade in the making, the Companies Act 2014 was signed into law at the end of last year.  The Act includes a number of radical reforms. It is the largest overhaul of company law the state has seen in half a century and is intended to make running a business in Ireland easier. All businesses need to understand the implications of the Act and be prepared for commencement, which is expected to take place on 1…