InBUSINESS Q4 2017

DERVLA MURPHY MENTORS SERIES WRITER DOES THINGS ON HER TERMS

InBUSINESS USINESS CONNECTING IRISH BUSINESS

Q4 2017

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IRISH MAGAZINE AWARDS 2017

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MISSION THE TRUE VALUE OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE VISITS

ART ASSESSING THE IRISH ART INVESTMENT INDUSTRY

InBUSINESS Q4 2017

DRIVEN BY KUEHNE + NAGEL CHIEF

HOW BIG DATA IS CHANGING SPORT AS WE KNOW IT

PAMELA QUINN ON HER WORK IN PROGRESS

UNFINISHED BUSINESS 9

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Editor: Joseph O’Connor Managing Editor: Mary Connaughton Editorial Assistant: Elisha Collier O’Brien (Chambers Ireland) Tiernan Cannon Art Director: Alan McArthur Editorial Contributors: Tiernan Cannon Orla Connolly Conor Forrest Valerie Jordan Design Assistant: James Moore Front Cover Photography: Jason Clarke Photography: Jason Clarke Photography iStock Photo Infographics: www.flaticon.com Production Manager: Mary Connaughton Production Executive: Nicole Ennis Sales Director: Paul Clemenson Managing Director: Gerry Tynan Chairman: Diarmaid Lennon

Published by: Ashville Media Group, Old Stone Building, Blackhall Green, Dublin 7 Tel: +353 1 432 2200 Email: info@ashville.com Web: www.ashville.com On behalf of: Chambers Ireland, 3rd Floor, Newmount House, 22 - 24 Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2 Tel: +353 1 400 4300 Email: info@chambers.ie Web: www.chambers.ie All articles © Ashville Media Group 2017.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. Opinion and comments expressed herein are not necessarily those of Ashville Media or Chambers Ireland. ISSN 20093934

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Business of Sport A look at the impact of data analytics on global sport, and how Ireland is making its mark Words: Conor Forrest

26

Industry

We take the pulse of the art investment sector in Ireland and seek advice from one enthusiastic investor Words: Tiernan Cannon

30

Where Business is Flying Passenger footfall is up, but Ireland’s regional airports still face challenges in 2018

35

Snapchat

Derek McDonnell, founder and Project Director, Mojo

36

On a Mission

Words: Tiernan Cannon

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Unfinished Business

We met with Pamela Quinn, MD of Kuehne + Nagel in Ireland, to hear how she is putting her own stamp on the global logistics company ENTREPRENEUR

ENTREPRENEUR

Words: Orla Connolly

A look at the role of international trade missions and whether they provide meaningful results for Irish businesses

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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COVER STORY:

“My business mantra is “keep digging”. Keep trying new things, finding new solutions and doing something different every day.”

Samuel Dennigan, founder of healthy frozen food brand Strong Roots, talks to InBUSINESS about plans to go global and why chancing your arm is sometimes necessary.

Q: How is life and how is business at present?

A: Life is good. I’m doing what I always wanted to be doing; to be constantly engaged and going into what some people call work every day completely satisfied. I heard a great quote recently: “If you’re looking forward to the weekend you need to fundamentally question what you’re doing on a Thursday and a Monday.” I can relate to that.

Q: What are your thoughts on the current state of the convenience food sector in Ireland? Any market trends impacting your business?

A: I think the industry is in a state of flux right now, and we have been seeing a move from the ‘chicken fillet roller’ to the ‘flexitarian salad lover’ and the ‘protein bowler’ – essentially a shift towards more healthy eating. This is more evident in the cities, in particular Dublin, which is closely mirroring what I see happening in London.

This move towards a plant-based and vegan diet is helping our cause massively, even if it’s just a once-a-week thing for the consumer. The best example is in our local Centra, where wedges and chicken fillets have been king for a long time. There, they are now selling Strong Roots oven-baked sweet potato at the deli counter.

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Q: Would you say you have always had a business head on your shoulders?

A: No, I learned from experience. The knowledge was lurking in the background somewhere, and working with my dad and my uncle for ten years definitely played a role, but initially I was in art college, painting and designing. It was not until I was 20 or 21 that I got a taste for business and have not looked back since. Selling and having a commercial goal is very addictive, and I always wanted to be independent – one complemented the other.

Q: What are your thoughts on entrepreneurship in Ireland at present and the types of businesses emerging here?

A: “Ireland is so hot right now,” is what comes to mind. There are people all around having a go at business. The tools that the Local Enterprise Offices and Enterprise Ireland provide are second to none and the support networks and opportunities for foreign investment is huge. In Ireland, we have something special going on and we should ensure that we cultivate it and continue selling it to the world. We can be, and kind of are, another Silicon Valley, but with food. I think there’s still work to do here, but we need to look at the larger picture and dream bigger.

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

BUSINESS OF SPORT

Putting Down Roots

Samuel Dennigan, founder of healthy frozen food brand Strong Roots, talks going global and why chancing your arm is sometimes necessary 1

22/12/2017 11:10

Crossover by Renault

KADJAR, KOLEOS, CAPTUR

Three in a row with Renault:

3% APR 3 Years Servicing 3 Years Road Tax Book a test drive at renault.ie Models shown: KADJAR SIGNATURE NAV ENERGY dCi 110 starting RRP €31,290. KOLEOS SIGNATURE NAV dCi 130 starting RRP €36,790. CAPTUR SIGNATURE X NAV Tce 90 starting RRP €22,890 Finance example: Captur Exp Tce 90 S&S. RRP €20,290. Deposit €6,896. Term 36 monthly payments of €169. APR 3%. Total cost of credit €896 inc doc & completion fee €75 each. Optional final payment €8,055. Includes 3-year service plan. 3 years road tax is based on the current rates applicable at the time of purchase. Offer exclusive to Renault Bank. Excess mileage plus excess wear and tear charges may apply upon return of Vehicle. Offer is made under a hire purchase agreement. Subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply. See renault.ie [Warning: You will not own these goods until the final payment is made]. Renault Bank is a trading name of RCI Banque Branch Ireland and is authorised and regulated by the French banking authority and supervised by the Central Bank for conduct of business purposes.

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20/12/2017 28/11/2017 12:16 27/11/2017 16:44 15:47

WRITER DERVLA MURPHY MENTORS SERIES DOES THINGS ON HER TERMS

InBUSINESS USINESS CONNECTING IRISH BUSINESS

Q4 2017

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IRISH MAGAZINE AWARDS 2017

AZINE O

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G

R BUSI

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THE Y

STATE OF THE

ART

ON A

MISSION

ASSESSING THE IRISH ART INVESTMENT INDUSTRY

THE TRUE VALUE OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE VISITS

InBUSINESS Q4 2017

DRIVEN BY KUEHNE + NAGEL CHIEF

HOW BIG DATA IS CHANGING SPORT AS WE KNOW IT

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PAMELA QUINN ON HER WORK IN PROGRESS

UNFINISHED BUSINESS 9

772009 393018

a2.70

@InBUSINESSIre

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Go to chambers.ie for the online edition [SHORT BACK & SIDES] For our cover shoot with Pamela Quinn we wanted to capture the essence of a female business leader who is comfortable in a male-dominated environment, and where better to do that than in a barber shop?

Dublin’s premium barbers Sugar Daddy provided the shoot location.

www.sugardaddys.ie

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Mentors: Dervla Murphy The Irish literary legend on her latest work and hanging up her backpack Words: Joseph O’Connor

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Small Business

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Mick Crean of car parts website MicksGarage. com is setting his sights on a 100m 100m turnover in the next five years

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106

WORLD REPORT

BELIEF WAS

INSPIRED BY MY FATHER WHO AS AN ORPHAN GREW UP TO BE A MUSICAL

In Conversation

STAR OF AFGHANISTAN.”

Karl Fitzpatrick of Bricks 4 Kidz Ireland on how to recognise and grab opportunities [LIFESTYLE] 102

MOTORING: Volvo’s XC60 is a touch of Scandinavian class 106

INNOVATION: We feature three very different robots

Words: Valerie Jordan

46

Book Extract An extract from NAMALand: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Property Sell-off and the Creation of a New Elite

WORLD REPORT “I’M A STRONG BELIEVER IN THE SOFT POWER OF MUSIC AND THAT

Striking a Chord in

Afghanistan 48

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World Report

JOSEPH O’CONNOR meets Dr Ahmad Sarmast, the Afghan music professor behind the revival of traditional music in his homeland.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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Meet Dr Ahmad Sarmast, the music professor behind the revival of traditional music education in Afghanistan Words: Joseph O’Connor

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TRAVEL:

Marrakesh offers a bizzare mix of old and new 111

BOOKS:

Brexit and Ireland - the dangers and opportunities InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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[REGULARS]

Our Local Government InBUSINESS Supplement continues to 06 LAND OF OPPORTUNITY look at the important role played by local authorities in Irish enterprise Page

Page

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5 Business News 10 Movers & Shakers 13 Opportunity Ireland 14 Start-Up Central

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Kerry angling projects awarded funding, EIB commits a85m to Limerick, and Waterford allocated funds for protected structures.

112 The IB Index

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Greenway goals outlined by Mayo County Council, Galway sport clubs receive funding boost, and major investment in wastewater infrastructure.

Page

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CMYK: 83 / 0 / 8 / 0 HEX: 40B3DF

New Cavan Institute campus welcomed, Monaghan shows exceptional leadership, and boost for Donegal’s digital ambitions.

RGB: 64/179/223 Font:

In Association with CMYK: CMYK: 49 / 0 / 100 / 0 0 / 0 / 0 / 100 HEX: A8CB17

HEX: 1f1e21

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• Din Medium • Din Regular

Following an impressive year which saw growth in multiple areas, Cork is continuously evolving into a high-tech and attractive location.

GETTING CONSTRUCTIVE A look at BAM Ireland’s activities in Cork

Page 9

59 Chambers Catch Up

Page

LEINSTER • MUNSTER • CONNAUGHT • ULSTER

Fingal signs agreement with EIB, success for Louth at Enterprise Awards, and Laois County Council to spend a30m on housing.

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LIMERICK RENAISSANCE

In Association with

The Limerick 2030 Economic and Spatial Plan has brought about significant changes within the city and county.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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Employee Insight: for a better employee experience

Empower your organisation with an agile employee listening strategy that enables you to drive change and make the employee experience better.

Willis Towers Watson Pulse Software allows you to quickly sense check employee opinions and reactions to events, giving leaders insight to enhance the employee experience. The software empowers your organisation to develop an agile employee listening strategy - one that enables you to drive change and monitor its effects.

Willis Towers Watson offers the only HR software products built on more than 100 years of experience solving the most complex HR issues for the world’s largest companies.

Find out more and request a demo at www.towerswatson.com/hrsoftware or please contact Ireland@willistowerswatson.com

Copyright Š 2017 Willis Towers Watson.

All rights reserved.

willistowerswatson.com

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07/11/2017 19/12/2017 09:51 14/11/2017 10:01 09:15

NE WS

BUSINESS NEWS

Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA, Guo Ping, Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO, Huawei and Patrick Prendergast, President, TCD

HUAWEI ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH TCD

C Mark Hadding, CFO, Jetpower; Rita Meehan, Property Leasing and Aviation Cluster Executive, International Aviation Services Centre; Ray O’Driscoll, Managing Director, Shannon Commercial Properties; Aaron Neff, CEO, Jetpower; and Michelle Viana, Asset Aquisitions, Jetpower

AIRCRAFT COMPANY

LANDING IN SHANNON US aircraft materials company Jetpower Aircraft Materials Limited has announced it is to establish a European base at the Shannon Free Zone Business Park in Co Clare. The company will not only expand consignment and service support from its Shannon facility, but will also continue growing its European aircraft materials business. Commenting on the move, Michele Viani, Head of Business Development for Jetpower, said: “We are very pleased to join Shannon’s aviation cluster. It is part of the Jetpower strategy to locate our operations in aviation hubs that match our customer locations and provide tremendous growth opportunities.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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hinese telecommunications company Huawei has announced a new research partnership with Trinity College Dublin (TCD) as part of its growing R&D footprint in Ireland. At an event at TCD, Guo Ping, Huawei Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO, also announced the expansion of the company’s Cork R&D operation, which is growing from a small team to nearly 20 highly skilled staff. These developments bring Huawei’s R&D investment in Ireland to 17.7 million in 2017, a significant increase from 2016. As part of his visit, Guo Ping also met with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to update him on Huawei’s 13-year commitment to Ireland.

INBUSINESS SCOOPS INDUSTRY AWARD We’re delighted to report that InBUSINESS was crowned ‘Business Magazine of the Year’ at a ceremony for the 2017 Irish Magazine Awards. The event took place on Thursday November 30th at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin city centre. InBUSINESS picked up the award by impressing the judging panel with the diverse range of topics it covers, as well as for its contemporary design.

InBUSINESS was one of two Ashville Media Group winning titles, with ICA Home & Living taking home the top prize in the Customer Magazine of the Year category.

Joseph O’Connor, Editor and Alan McArthur, Art Director, InBUSINESS magazine

For the full list of winners go to www.magazinesireland.ie.

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Picture: Conor McCabe Photography

BUSINESS NEWS

Pat McCann, founder and CEO of Dalata Hotel Group

DALATA LAUNCHES

OWN COFFEE BRAND Dalata Hotel Group has launched its first ever ownbrand Red Bean Roastery coffee shop at its flagship Clayton Hotel in Dublin 18. Red Bean Roastery has launched with 14 coffee docks in Clayton and Maldron hotels throughout Ireland and UK, and this is the first standalone coffee shop with two more planned for rollout in Dublin in 2018. In addition, Dalata Hotel Group is rolling out the Red Bean Roastery brand to 35 of its existing Clayton and Maldron hotels located throughout Ireland and the UK in 2018, and will be included as a standard in hotels under construction.

PICTURE THIS

Josh Hanlon (3) from Celbridge, Co Kildare, pictured with a Jonathan Swift 15 Silver Proof limited edition commemorative coin, which was launched by the Central Bank to mark the 350th anniversary of the famous author’s birth on November 30th 1667.

Business

BITES

CENTRAL BANK IDENTIFIES RISKS TO ECONOMY In its latest Macro-Financial Review, the Central Bank has identified the biggest risks facing the Irish economy as Brexit, disruptions to global trade arrangements, overheating and high levels of debt.

DUBLIN PORT NAMED InBUSINESS COMPANY OF THE YEAR AN AMERICAN STORY WINS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Financial Times and McKinsey & Company have announced that Amy Goldstein is the winner of the 2017 Business Book of the Year Award for Janesville: An American Story, published by Simon & Schuster.

The book explores the human consequences of the General Motors assembly plant closure in the American town of Janesville.

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Dublin Port Company was the big winner at this year’s InBUSINESS Recognition Awards, where it won Company of the Year and Best in Tourism. Responding to the win, chief executive Eamonn O’Reilly said: “We are delighted to receive the award.

It shines a light on a successful year for Dublin Port across all areas of the business, from trade and tourism to development, heritage and arts projects, and those in our business whose commitment and hard work make all this happen.”

For more on the InBUSINESS Recognition Awards go to page 87.

Pat Ward, Head of Corporate Services and Eamonn O’Reilly, Chief Executive, Dublin Port Company

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:15

BUSINESS NEWS

VODAFONE ADDRESSES

STEM GENDER GAP

V

odafone Ireland has announced a new initiative aimed at teaching teenage girls how to code. Run in partnership with CodeFirst: Girls and supported by Technology and the Women’s Network, the #CodeLikeaGirl student workshops take place over the course of a week and are delivered by Vodafone employees. The initiative STEM STATS will provide female students with basic knowledge of the number of people in Ireland working directly in roles computer languages and requiring STEM experience development programmes, with the aim of building a of those working in website upon completion. The STEM who are women first workshop took place in early November with further the percentage of Leaving workshops with schools Certificate engineering students across Ireland planned for who were girls in 2015 early 2018.

The #CodeLikeaGirl student workshops are delivered by Vodafone employees

IRELAND ATTRACTING EUROPEAN JOBSEEKERS

LOW KNOWLEDGE OF GDPR AMONG HR EXECUTIVES

SALES AT IKEA HIT €167M

New research from jobs website Indeed.com shows that Ireland recorded a 33.6 per cent increase in its share of searches for jobs in Europe since 2015, the second largest increase of all countries.

A survey of 1,800 HR professionals in Europe conducted by global HR and payroll service provider SD Worx has found that 44 per cent do not know what the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is.

Sales at Swedish furniture group IKEA in Ireland have increased 10 per cent year-on-year to 167 million, according to its latest trading statement. The company now has a market share of 8.4 per cent in Ireland.

“I go to some meetings and I would be one female with 30 men and it doesn’t faze me.”

P2P LENDER LAUNCHES PENSION ACCOUNTS

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Linked Finance has launched a new account that allows holders of self-administered pensions to make P2P lending to Irish SMEs part of their pension investment portfolio. The accounts have been developed in conjunction with a number of Irish pension trustee companies so that they meet the typical requirements associated with the most common self-managed pension products on the Irish market. Commenting on the launch, Niall Dorrian, CEO, Linked Finance, said: “These accounts are a valuable development for the platform and have real potential to boost liquidity; ultimately increasing access to fast, fair and affordable finance for Irish SMEs.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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Pamela Quinn, MD, Kuehne + Nagel (Ireland)

Niall Dorrian, CEO, Linked Finance with Kieran Murphy, owner of Murphy’s Ice Cream, a Linked Finance client

COVER STORY

P20

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22/12/2017 11:15

THE BURNING QUESTION

?

What is your favourite possession and why?

SAMUEL DENNIGAN Strong Roots The Strong Roots Food Truck – it’s a converted Land Rover Defender, which is a fully mobile restaurant/festival vehicle.

We built it from scratch so only one exists. I love cars so this was a proud one for me.

KARL FITZPATRICK Bricks 4 Kidz My most valued possession are my staff. Businesses don’t grow; it’s the people within them that grow. I can have all the strategic plans I like, but unless I have a team of people that can support it, my plan is worthless.

MICK CREAN MicksGarage I have my Honda Deauville touring motorbike. There’s nothing better than taking it out on a summer’s day or just to meetings in town. It is often said that the love for a machine is greater than the love for a woman but that’s not always true. My wife and kids do come first (If you don’t print this she will torch the bike!).

JOHN CUNNINGHAM CheckRisk I have an 1870s farmhouse in Kilkenny, which has no television and no telephone. It’s an hour and a half’s drive from Dublin. It creates that stunning balance between being up in the capital and getting away from it all and the power of nature.

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A64M WORTH

OF CONFERENCE

BUSINESS FOR DUBLIN

F

áilte Ireland’s Dublin Convention Bureau has confirmed that a64 million of new business was won for Dublin in 2017. The revenue boost is a result of winning 150 new conferences for the city and county over the last number of months, which are expected to attract almost 45,000 international delegates to Dublin during the period 2018 to 2021.

Sam Johnston, Manager, Dublin Convention Bureau, Fáilte Ireland; David Meade, inspirational speaker; Paul Mockler, Head of Commercial Development, Fáilte Ireland and Sean Reid, Commercial Director, CityWest Hotel Among the notable conference wins recently confirmed for Dublin are: VELO CITY 2019 WORLD CON UROPEAN FEDERATION E OF PERIODONTOLOGY’S 3RD MASTER CLINIC I NTERNATIONAL & EUROPEAN CONGRESS ON OBESITY (ECO/ICO)

ONLY 37% OF IRISH WORKERS

Chas Moloney, Director, Ricoh Ireland and UK

CAN WORK REMOTELY

New research has revealed that only 37 per cent of workers have authorisation and access to tools to work remotely. The 2017 Workstyle Innovation Survey, which was carried out by Ricoh Ireland, claims that with so few employees able to work effectively away from the office, companies in Ireland are missing out on the benefits of mobile working. Commenting on the findings, Chas Moloney, Director, Ricoh Ireland and UK, said: “With the importance of work-life balance nowadays and increasing numbers of people working at home or on the move, the appetite for mobility and accessibility among workers has never been greater. Thus, it is of utmost importance that organisations take full advantage of the latest technologies in order to enable their workers to effectively and securely work where and when they want.”

FINDINGS AT A GLANCE believe their business is fully embracing digital transformation

of companies are finding it more difficult to manage and secure business documents

of Irish companies digitise critical information as a policy

of workers have authorisation and access to tools to work remotely

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 13:38

EDDIE WANTS

YOU

FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITIES IN MUNSTER, CONNACHT & ULSTER FOR NEARLY 30 YEARS EDDIE ROCKET’S HAVE BEEN CREATING HAMBURGERS USING ONLY THE FINEST INGREDIENTS AND 100% NATURAL FRESHLY GROUND IRISH BEEF. WE NOW HAVE 41 EDDIE ROCKET’S – OUR CASUAL DINERS. IF YOU SHARE OUR VISION TO CREATE THE PERFECT HAMBURGER AND WOULD LIKE TO JOIN THE EDDIE ROCKET’S FAMILY, VISIT: rocket-restaurants.com/franchise IRISH FRANCHISE ASSOCIATION FRANCHISE OF THE YEAR 2017

Winner

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2017

19/12/2017 14/11/2017 09:52 09:31

MOVERS & SHAKERS

M vers

NEW APPOINTMENTS IN THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY NATIONWIDE

SHAKERS

AISLING KEEGAN

DARA LYNOTT

MICHAEL MCATEER

CLAIRE O’GRADY

NEW TITLE: Chair EMPLOYER: Technology Ireland OTHER ROLE: Vice President and Commercial General Manager, Dell EMC

NEW TITLE: Chief Executive Officer EMPLOYER: Electricity Association of Ireland PREVIOUS ROLE: Executive Director, EPA

NEW TITLE: Managing Partner EMPLOYER: Grant Thornton OTHER ROLE: Head of Advisory Services

NEW TITLE: Head of Consumer and Lifestyle Brands EMPLOYER: Legacy Consultants PREVIOUS ROLE: Head of Consumer, Insight Consultants

Aisling Keegan, Vice-President and Commercial General Manager at Dell EMC Ireland, has been appointed the new Chair of Technology Ireland, the business organisation representing the ICT, digital and software technology sector. As Chair, Keegan will be responsible for representing a network of home-grown and international tech leaders who are helping to forge a digital future for Ireland.

Dara Lynott has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Electricity Association of Ireland, the representative body for the all-island electricity sector. He takes up his role from January 1st 2018, for a period of three years. Lynott joins the association following 13 years as an executive director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Professional services firm Grant Thornton has confirmed the election of Michael McAteer as Managing Partner. McAteer takes up the new position following his role as head of Advisory Services with the firm, having originally joined Grant Thornton in 2008 with the merger of Foster McAteer.

McAteer is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI) and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Communications and sponsorship agency Legacy Consultants has appointed Claire O’Grady as Head of Consumer and Lifestyle Brands. During her 15-year career to date, O’Grady has produced campaigns for a range of high profile consumer brands across the food, retail, hospitality and wellbeing sectors. She joins from PR agency Insight Consultants.

TOP CAREER TIPS 10

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Jane Gregory has recently been appointed Managing Director of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising in Ireland. She joined O&M in January 2015 and has more than 20 years’ advertising experience in both the USA and Ireland.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:14

CAREER DOCTOR

GETTING SMART ABOUT INTELLIGENCE IN THIS ISSUE, CAREER DOCTOR SUSAN KEALY LOOKS AT THE IMPORTANCE OF RECOGNISING THE ‘RIGHT’ INTELLIGENCE.

W

CIARÁN SEOIGHE

BILLY ROCHE

NEW TITLE: Deputy Director General EMPLOYER: Science Foundation Ireland PREVIOUS ROLE: MD of Retail, Industrial and Travel, Accenture

NEW TITLE: Operations Director EMPLOYER: Murphy Surveys PREVIOUS ROLE: Project Manager, Murphy Surveys

Science Foundation Ireland has announced the appointment of Dr Ciarán Seoighe as Deputy Director General of the organisation.

He joins from Accenture and commences duties in January 2018.

Seoighe holds a BA in Natural Science and a PhD in Quantum Physics from Trinity College Dublin and has a wealth of experience across a variety of sectors from his career in Accenture both in Dublin and South Africa.

Murphy Surveys has announced the appointment of Billy Roche as Operations Director at the company.

Joining the firm as project manager in 2015, Roche brings a wealth of national and international project management experience to the role.

His primary focus will be managing the operational effectiveness of the organisation, ensuring the appropriate resources and capabilities are in place to deliver projects, and supporting strategic growth of the organisation.

e all want to hire intelligent people.

Libraries of new psychometric assessments designed to weed out the dumb and celebrate the smart hit the market every year. As psychologists, we revere ‘General Mental Ability’ in the workplace because research tells us that test scores measuring high GMA correlate strongly with job performance.

So what is intelligence? In short, we don’t really know. It’s something to do with the ability to acquire useful knowledge. It’s about problem-solving, using logic, intuition and experience. It’s whatever an IQ test measures – competence across the areas of verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning. The things that academia teaches us to be important.

So what about the people that perform at the top of their game, but not at the top of an IQ test? Ever heard of Justin Bieber, Muhammed Ali or Andy Warhol? IQ tests don’t measure musical talent, athletic superiority or creative genius but there can be little doubt that these low IQ personalities have had enormous success in their fields. And by many standards, they have been ‘intelligent’ in their fields – they have acquired and applied specialised knowledge to solve problems.

In recent years, theories of Multiple Intelligences, EQ and ‘Grit’ (passion, perseverance and resilience) have had much success challenging the dominance of IQ. So, before you dismiss someone for low GMA scores, be clear on the nature of the problem you need solved. Ask yourself how passionate they are about it, and how likely they’ll be to push through obstacles in order to learn.

Susan Kealy is a certified coach and trainer and a registered psychologist specialising in organisational and career psychology. For more visit www.careercraft.ie.

1.

Careers are built on strong working relationships. It’s crucial that those around you feel valued and respected.

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2.

Personal integrity is vital.

Your word is your bond.

3.

Keep a clear focus on the horizon.

Clearly defined goals should guide everything you do.

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The Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) is Ireland’s dedicated development, promotional and marketing office for the maritime sector.

The IMDO supports the development of the indigenous maritime industry and works with international business across all areas of the maritime sector to help them to set-up or to expand in Ireland.

Ireland has a world class maritime industry that is facilitating record breaking economic growth. Turnover increased by 23% over the period 2014 to 2016. The ocean economy currently represents 0.9% of GDP, with recent figures suggesting that it is moving steadily towards its target of 2.4% by 2030.

+353 1 775 39 00

imdo@imdo.ie

www.imdo.ie

Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, D02 NT99, Dublin 2, Ireland

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19/12/2017 28/11/2017 10:21 13:00

JOB CREATION COMPANY: Pluralsight SECTOR: Technology LOCATION: Dublin ANNOUNCEMENT: Pluralsight, the enterprise technology learning company, has announced plans to open a new EMEA headquarters in Dublin in early 2018, which will see the creation of 150 jobs over the next three years.

COMPANY: Strencom

SECTOR: Technology

LOCATION: Dublin & ANNOUNCEMENT: Cork Cloud computing provider Strencom has announced 6 million investment from reinvested profits and the addition of 20 employees to its current 28 people in its Dublin and Cork offices. The jobs are being created on the back of strong revenue growth in recent years.

COMPANY: Md7 SECTOR: Telecommunications LOCATION: Dublin ANNOUNCEMENT: Md7 is to significantly increase its size by adding 40 new jobs at its international headquarters in Dublin.

Md7 is a turnkey site development and real estate optimisation company serving the telecommunications industry since 2003.

OpportunityIRELAND InBUSINESS highlights some of the companies that are expanding operations and generating new employment opportunities around the country.

COMPANY: Antares Vision SECTOR: Logistics

COMPANY: Maximum Media SECTOR: Digital Media

LOCATION: Galway

LOCATION: Galway

ANNOUNCEMENT: Antares Vision, the Italian company specialised in inspection systems and smart data management solutions, is to establish a software development centre in Galway, creating 53 jobs in the next five years.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Maximum Media has announced the creation of 20 jobs in a new office in Galway. The expansion will take the group’s workforce above 150, according to the company behind the JOE, SportsJOE, Her and HerFamily websites.

COMPANY: Lidl

LOCATION: Offaly

ANNOUNCEMENT: Ten new jobs have been created in the local Lidl supermarket in Edenderry, Co Offaly. The store reopened in December 2017 following four months of closure due to construction work on a new extension taking place.

21

Regional Projects Win €30.5m in EI Funding

1. Irish Manufacturing Research CLG 2. RDI Hub Company Limited

by Guarantee 3. Dublin Enterprise & Technology Centre 4 AgriTech Centre of Excellence CLG

SECTOR: Retail

5. BIA Innovator Campus CLG 6. Irish Bioeconomy Foundation CLG 7. Ghala DAC 8. Three-D (Design Develop Disseminate) DAC

Twenty-one successful applicants representing all regions of the country have secured up to 30.5 million for their projects in the first round of the new 60m competitive Regional Enterprise Development Fund. The successful applicants are as follows: 9. Donegal Digital Innovation Company 10. InsurTech Network Centre 11. Leitrim County Enterprise Fund Ltd 12. Cork Urban Enterprises CLG

13. Kildare Community Network 14. Social & Local Enterprise Alliance DAC 15. Monaghan County Enterprise Fund Food 16. Sneem Digital Hub

17. Mol Teic 18. Emerald Aero Cluster CLG 19. IT@Cork 20. KerrySciTech 21 BPO Cluster Ireland CLG

Details of the Regional Enterprise Development Fund are available on Enterprise Ireland’s website www.enterprise-ireland.com/REDF

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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22/12/2017 11:14

START-UPS

Start-Up Central

NEWS,VIEWS AND PROFILES ON THE LATEST START-UPS IN IRELAND

The percentage of Dublin residents who believe the start-up scene in the capital is growing, according to a survey published by HubSpot in November 2017.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

START-UP PROGRAMME OPENS AT WIT Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research & Development John Halligan has announced the establishment of the NDRC@ArcLabs Start-up Accelerator programme at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). The programme is open to applications from potential teams or individuals both in Ireland or overseas, in all technology sectors.

The accelerator programme is part of Enterprise Ireland’s overall strategy to increase the number and quality of start-ups that have the potential to employ more than 10 persons and achieve 1 million in export sales within three years.

For more details on the accelerator go to www.arclabs.ie

KERRILL THORNHILL Founder and CEO, MEG Support Tools

How did you fund your business initially?

The business was self-funded initially with a strong focus on customer acquisition. We also went to Bank of Ireland and Microfinance Ireland. Having a good business plan helped us to secure loans in a relatively short time period. We also received support from the Local Enterprise Office who were great to deal with.

What’s the best advice you were given?

You are the master of your own destiny. When you run your own company, you have to make things happen – no one else is going to do it for you. Get involved in the start-up community and reach out for advice.

What was the most important lesson you learned starting out?

If you don’t have customers you don’t have a business. I spend a lot of time with my clients, listening to them, responding to feedback and applying it to our products. They are a great source of inspiration.

Your biggest make or break moment?

Securing a contract with the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. They are an excellent endorsement for the company, particularly when it comes to scaling internationally.

Would you change anything in hindsight?

Having the right leadership team in place starting out, clear communication, company vision, and switching focus from services to products at an earlier stage.

Company: Location: Product: Staff: Website:

MEG Support Tools The Digital Hub, Thomas Street, Dublin 8 Clinical auditing systems & apps to distribute clinical guidelines Seven full-time, one part-time www.megsupporttools.com

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NDRC TO RUN PRE-SEED ACCELERATOR IN OMAN The Dublin-based early stage technology investor and accelerator NDRC is to run an international pre-seed accelerator in Oman early next year as part of a new venture. The centre, which was established back in 2007, has been retained by the Oman Technology Fund (OTF) to provide expertise and personnel through the threemonth programme which will commence in January. It will include a two-week visit by the Omani ventures to Dublin in early 2018 to exchange learnings with Irish start-ups.

Speaking about the partnership, NDRC CEO Ben Hurley said: “It builds on the international investment being secured by our portfolio ventures, and reflects well on how Ireland’s start-up enterprise ecosystem is viewed internationally.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:14

START-UPS

PROLEGO SCIENTIFIC SCOOPS UCD AWARD Early-stage enterprise Prolego Scientific has won University College Dublin’s 2017 Start-Up of the Year Award. The start-up won the award and a 20,000 prize after being declared overall winner of the 2017 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme.

Prolego Scientific offers proprietary artificial intelligence solutions that are used to improve the accuracy of genetic tests in areas such as animal health and performance metrics.

Andrew Parnell, Belinda Hernández and Mahdi Amina, founders of Prolego Scientific

Richie Commins, founder, Flag

NE TO WATCH: FLAG

The AYLIEN Dublin team

AI START-UP SECURES 2M IN FUNDING Deep Learning and advanced natural language processing are the core technologies at AYLIEN, a start-up that in November announced new investment totalling 2 million and the creation of 70 jobs. The investment round has been led by the Atlantic Bridge University Fund in partnership with SOSV and Enterprise Ireland. AYLIEN will use the capital to grow its Dublin team, secure its first hires in the US, expand its product offering and make its technologies available to more global enterprises. AYLIEN’s technology is used in complex data analytics projects and solutions by global enterprises, namely Sony, Microsoft, and Deloitte.

Flag, a new taxi app designed for students was launched in Dublin city in December.

The app claims to be the only service in the world that allows a passenger to travel and pay for taxis with no phone, cash or bank card while ensuring the driver still gets paid. Flag originally started out as a college project called Dash while founder Richie Commins was a final year student at NUI Galway.

Flag is similar to other taxi apps, however users are required to upload photo ID and create a personal digit pin code to secure an account, which enables them to use its wallet-less feature. Support from Enterprise Ireland, Nissan, AIB and other organisations has helped Commins get the start-up off the ground. Flag plans to roll out across the country later in 2018.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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22/12/2017 11:14

ENTREPRENEUR

Samuel Dennigan, founder of healthy frozen food brand Strong Roots, talks to InBUSINESS about plans to go global and why chancing your arm is sometimes necessary.

Q: How is life and how is business at present?

A: Life is good. I’m doing what I always wanted to be doing; to be constantly engaged and going into what some people call work every day completely satisfied. I heard a great quote recently: “If you’re looking forward to the weekend you need to fundamentally question what you’re doing on a Thursday and a Monday.” I can relate to that.

Q: What are your thoughts on the current state of the convenience food sector in Ireland? Any market trends impacting your business?

A: I think the industry is in a state of flux right now, and we have been seeing a move from the ‘chicken fillet roller’ to the ‘flexitarian salad lover’ and the ‘protein bowler’ – essentially a shift towards more healthy eating. This is more evident in the cities, in particular Dublin, which is closely mirroring what I see happening in London.

This move towards a plant-based and vegan diet is helping our cause massively, even if it’s just a once-a-week thing for the consumer. The best example is in our local Centra, where wedges and chicken fillets have been king for a long time. There, they are now selling Strong Roots oven-baked sweet potato at the deli counter.

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Q: Would you say you have always had a business head on your shoulders?

A: No, I learned from experience. The knowledge was lurking in the background somewhere, and working with my dad and my uncle for ten years definitely played a role, but initially I was in art college, painting and designing. It was not until I was 20 or 21 that I got a taste for business and have not looked back since. Selling and having a commercial goal is very addictive, and I always wanted to be independent – one complemented the other.

Q: What are your thoughts on entrepreneurship in Ireland at present and the types of businesses emerging here?

A: “Ireland is so hot right now,” is what comes to mind. There are people all around having a go at business. The tools that the Local Enterprise Offices and Enterprise Ireland provide are second to none and the support networks and opportunities for foreign investment is huge. In Ireland, we have something special going on and we should ensure that we cultivate it and continue selling it to the world. We can be, and kind of are, another Silicon Valley, but with food. I think there’s still work to do here, but we need to look at the larger picture and dream bigger.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:13

ENTREPRENEUR

“My business mantra is ‘keep digging’.

Keep trying new things, finding new solutions and doing something different every day.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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22/12/2017 11:13

ENTREPRENEUR

“SELLING AND HAVING A

COMMERCIAL GOAL IS VERY ADDICTIVE, AND I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE

INDEPENDENT – ONE

COMPLEMENTED THE OTHER.”

Samuel Dennigan, founder, Strong Roots

GIVING UP THE HOST When Samuel was first starting out, so tight were the purse strings that he used to pay himself a salary with funds made from being an Airbnb host. Little did he know that two years later he would be in Airbnb’s Dublin headquarters speaking about his business as part of the 2017 EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme.

“That was pretty surreal,” he recalls.

“We got an insight into a really awesome company that day.”

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016 InBusiness Q4 2017_Entrepreneur.indd 18

Q: Any interesting story you can share with us related to starting out in business?

A: During my first week selling the products directly into stores I was barred from the premises of what is now one of our best customers. It seems that I had caught a duty manager in one of the major retailers on the wrong day. I was driving the van and doing distribution myself at that time, and was having a great day. I arrived with a delivery, which they hadn’t ordered – I was chancing my arm, which sometimes you have to do. Face-to-face sales is what I love and it’s how you make longlasting relationships. The duty manager immediately knew what I was up to and he kicked me out. So instead, I went back around the front of the shop and found a different manager. They are a now a top 20 store for us. “Keep digging,” is what we say at Strong Roots!

Q: Tell us about your plans to make your brand global.

A: Our strategy is to move step-by-step.

There’s no point in dreaming small. ‘Global’ is a big word and one that I don’t use lightly.

I genuinely believe that, business aside, what we’re doing is making people’s lives easier and giving them piece of mind when it comes to what’s going into their food.

This is good food that’s made from vegetables and ingredients that you would find in your kitchen or not too far away. There is a large part of the global population that wants that. Therefore, I want to seek them out, discover what they like and make food for them that tastes great, is easy to prepare, affordable, nutritious, made from plants, and frozen to save on waste. If we can achieve that in our lifetime, that would be great!

Q: Any advice for budding entrepreneurs hoping to get a business off the ground?

A: Never let your business get off the ground.

In business, treat every day like day one. If you don’t, someone else will. It’s really hard work, you make tonnes of sacrifices in your personal life, but if you want the challenge, then it should be challenging every day.

On the contrary, know that it takes time to develop a business. There have been several times when I questioned why I was doing it, but the answer was always the same – for the variety and the ever-changing nature of it.

Q: What has been your own mantra in business?

A: My business mantra is “keep digging”.

Keep trying new things, finding new solutions and doing something different every day.

Personally, I’ve always loved the line: “be inclusive, not exclusive.” Lots of people think that keeping ideas or intentions secret is important for business, but I’ve found that asking people for help and giving advice are equally important. We are all humans and should be helping each other out rather than trying to get ahead. Everyone has their own agenda, and are usually too busy to worry about yours.

Q: Any company news or expansion plans you can share with us at this time?

A: We’ve just launched five new products; roasted beetroot wedges, two veggie burgers, our mixed root veg fries and our awesome spinach bites, which taste great and are really handy for snacking. This means the range now includes nine products.

We have launched in Amazon Fresh in the UK and our whole range is now available in Iceland (the country), where we have been a huge hit.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:13

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19/12/2017 17/11/2017 09:54 14:01

COVER STORY

Jason Clarke

"WE’VE ALREADY GROWN OUR BUSINESS, BUT I THINK THERE IS A LOT MORE THAT WE CAN DO."

Pamela Quinn at Sugar Daddy Barbers, Exchequer Street, Dublin

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 13:52

UNFINISHED Managing Director of global logistics firm Kuehne + Nagel in Ireland, Pamela Quinn, talks to InBUSINESS about taking the reins, encouraging innovation, and succeeding in a male-dominated industry.

“I’m

big on looking at behaviour,” says Pamela Quinn, talking to me over a coffee at the Central Hotel on Dublin’s Exchequer Street. The 41-year-old MD of Kuehne + Nagel in Ireland is describing how she drew on her HR skills before jumping into her current role at the global logistics firm, a leap she took back in late 2013.

Quinn was on holidays when her former boss gave her the heads up that he was moving to a new position in the UK and that she would be next in line for the managing director role.

“I didn’t jump at it at first,” recalls Quinn. “To be honest, I had thought that the role was about another two years away. But it was a case of ‘do or die’. Either I was going to dive into it now and give it everything I have or stand by and let someone else have a shot at it, and potentially give up the opportunity to take it on at all. So, I knew I had to just go for it.”

At that point Quinn had been with Kuehne + Nagel for 12 years. Starting in an administrative role and studying HR at night, she was part of a small team of around 30 people operating at the firm’s Irish headquarters in Swords. It wasn’t long before she spotted an opportunity to put her people skills to use and approached management with a proposal to set up a HR department. Quinn stuck at that for five years and had two people working for her by the time she moved into operations. From there, she moved up the ladder, while the company grew its presence in Ireland.

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22/12/2017 13:52

A GLOBAL PRESENCE Kuehne + Nagel might not be a name that slips off the tongue for most Irish people, but the company headquartered in Switzerland has quite the global presence; 74,000 employees in more than 1,300 offices in over 100 countries. In Ireland alone, it has 300 staff at offices in Dublin, Cork and Shannon.

Returning to the subject of observing behaviour, Quinn says: “I looked at the senior team and how they operated; simple things like how they were structuring their day, where they were spending their time. I had been in the company a long time so I had made small observations but when I really sat back to observe how people behaved, it came naturally to me because of my HR background. I was already used to dealing with things in this way and understanding the impacts of behaviours. It meant that I was quite clear coming into the following year what I wanted to do as MD. It was a case of pulling those thoughts together and that Pamela Quinn, time spent observing behaviour Managing Director, proved invaluable.”

Kuehne + Nagel When Quinn took the reins, CV: JP Hughes Chief Commercial Officer, Friends First Kuehne + Nagel was performing CURRENTLY FAVOURITE FAVOURITE well in Ireland and READING: FILM: QUOTE: so she was tasked “Work for the job you want, Black Box It’s a with keeping the not the job you have.”

Thinking Wonderful Life

by Matthew (1946) Pamela Quinn company on the Syed same trajectory.

However, she also took the opportunity to put her stamp on the company’s Quinn. “But having been a part of important to review these things culture. She sought to improve the the company for a long time, I felt for improvement measures, they business by focusing on two key that there were things that we could were no longer controllable. I felt improve upon easily. I personally strongly about changing the focus areas. One centred on ensuring felt we were too backwards looking. to what we could achieve. This that all communication within What I mean by that is, if you take empowered the team because we the company was future-focused, a typical meeting you go into as a were now shaping the outcome of while the other related to fostering management team, you’d spend the what we could shape ourselves. It collaboration within the senior entire time talking about what had certainly changed things at a senior management team.

“Kuehne + Nagel was performing happened. We would all review past level, and we knew it would take a performance, what we had achieved lot more time for it to filter down.” well when I took over so I was But filter down it did and in terms of results and what we had expected to come in and to Quinn says the change in culture gotten over the line. And while it’s maintain the status quo,” explains 22

020 InBusiness Q4 2017_Cover Story.indd 22

Jason Clarke

"I’VE NEVER QUESTIONED OR DOUBTED MYSELF BECAUSE I WAS FEMALE. I CAN EITHER DO THE JOB OR I CAN’T!”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 13:52

has translated into an improved bottom line. “We got busier, gained more customers, and that drove the demand for more people to come in,” she adds. “Over the next three years, we grew by 75 per cent, bottom line growth. We practically doubled in size.”

MORE THAN A TO B Technology and innovation has been shaping the logistics industry in recent years – gone are the days when providers are simply asked to move a product from A to B. Take the pharmaceutical industry for example. The Health Products Regulatory Authority – the body that reviews and monitors health products available in Ireland or exported abroad – demands that manufacturers here can provide full visibility of the entire supply chain for their products. Kuehne + Nagel has developed tools to give manufacturers the peace of mind that their products will pass all the necessary regulations; by not being tampered with, by being kept at the correct temperature and by maintaining the right quality all the way through their journey.

“We’ve developed technology that has allowed us to create what we call a ‘lane assessment’,” says Quinn. “Every touch point, of which you could have 30 or 40 – airports, docks, warehousing, trucks, going on the tarmac at the airport, getting loaded onto the plane – we map it all out and are able to produce details for the customer that verify the temperature consistency throughout its journey. It’s data that they’ve never had. We take in ambient temperatures, truck temperatures and other finer details at every touch point that the shipment connects with, condense it all for them to show the accuracy of the temperature monitoring and give it back to them with a quality sign off. This is a huge attraction for customers in this industry and we’re the only ones doing it, for now.”

Kuehne + Nagel has a whole department dedicated to developing InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

020 InBusiness Q4 2017_Cover Story.indd 23

these kinds of technologies. In 2018, the company will launch its own Innovation Council, where a panel of experts will review ideas pitched to them by staff relating to innovative ways of making the Kuehne + Nagel service even better. The initiative will form part of the KN+NextGen strategy, the company’s business development plan for the next four years.

NOT FAZED While Quinn is focused on driving the company forward when it comes to technology, staff behaviour and company structure, how does she cope operating in what is traditionally a very male-dominated industry? “I’ve never considered it, in all honesty,” she says with confidence. “I’ve never felt that it was an issue in an everyday sense.

“I don’t feel odd in the environment. I go to some meetings and I would be one female with 30 men and it doesn’t faze me. When I was at a customer meeting the other day, there were eleven men and me. The way I look at it is, regardless of gender, it’s businessperson to businessperson; that’s the way I’ve always looked at it. I’ve never questioned or doubted myself because I was female. I can either do the job or I can’t!”

Having been appointed MD of Kuehne + Nagel Ireland at 37, Quinn rose to boardroom level at quite a young age. So, can we expect to see her in charge of the company here for many years to come? “Do I see myself staying? Absolutely. I’m still excited by the industry – it’s innovative and fast-faced and this keeps me interested,” she asserts.

According to Quinn, her business at Kuehne + Nagel is not quite finished. “I believe that in Ireland we have so much potential,” she says.

“We’ve already grown our business, but I think there is a lot more that we can do. We have lots of projects that we’ve started that I don’t think we’ve seen to fruition yet and I believe we can deliver these and offer even more value to our customers.”

FILLING THE SMALL BUSINESS

GAP SMEs form a large part of Kuehne + Nagel’s business in Ireland, and two years ago the company decided to reflect this in the service it provided to its smaller clients. “We identified that there was a gap in how we looked after our SME customer and we wanted to really make sure that they felt just as important as our large customers,” explains Quinn. “As we won new small business customers and were introducing them to Kuehne + Nagel, we wanted them to feel special from that point on, so we introduced a seven-step programme called ‘onboarding’ that would ensure they received professional engagement every step of the way.

We launched that about two years ago and we’ve just gone digital with this service. We’ll be enhancing it even further in 2018.”

For more on Kuehne + Nagel’s offering to small businesses go to www.kuehne-nagel.ie.

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22/12/2017 13:52

BUSINESS OF SPORT

CONOR FORREST explores the impact of data analytics on global sport, and how Ireland is making its mark.

T

DATA

he modern thirst for sports data analytics can probably be traced back to Billy Beane, former general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team in California, or at least the 2011 film starring Brad Pitt that brought his story to a more global audience. Around the turn of the millennium, Beane continued his predecessor Sandy Alderson’s work of fielding a competitive team on a limited budget, using sabermetric principles – the analysis of baseball data – to find the value in players that other teams missed and helping the As to punch above their economic weight.

The rapid pace of technological development in recent years has accelerated this interest across the board, with data being analysed on everything from the health of players and their movement on the pitch to fan engagement and scouting. In the Premier League, Arsenal acquired USbased StatDNA in 2012 to help the club scout for new players and prepare for games. In Denmark, FC Midtylland’s rise in recent years has been driven by data in developing its squad, famously beating Manchester United 2-1 in the Europa league in 2016.

While there are clusters of sports technology innovators across the globe, Ireland has an opportunity to play an important role in a market predicted to be worth over $113 billion by 2021. Located on the edge of Europe, we’re in a unique position to benefit from the transatlantic corridor and US companies in search of a European foothold, particularly as Britain prepares to leave the EU. Among the Irish firms leading the charge is Orecco, a Galway-based company with offices in London and California. Working with teams including Newcastle United and an unknown National Basketball Association (NBA) side in the US, Olympic athletes and golfer Pádraig Harrington, Orecco blends data and sports science to optimise athletes’ training and nutrition, accelerating injury recovery and prolonging their careers, using a variety of methods including performance nutrition, advanced machine learning, and biomarker analysis. In 2015, the company partnered with IBM and its Watson artificial intelligence system to develop an app to boost the performance of Olympic athletes; earlier in 2017 it launched its groundbreaking app FitrWoman, which provides training and nutrition suggestions based around the menstrual cycle. Elite athletes are the primary target market at present, but the company aims to extend its reach to the broader consumer

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market in the years ahead.

“To achieve world class in sport you need to work very hard, but there is a very fine line. If you push too hard you run the risk of getting sick or hurt. We help athletes navigate that line,” says Orreco’s CEO Dr Brian Moore, who notes that the company’s work is helping them build the world’s first AI coaching assistant. “Our ambition, in the very near future, is to help share the breakthroughs we make with elite athletes available to us all. We will be able to help amateur athletes in training around the world [in] preparing for their next 5K or event, or simply to improve our health and wellness. In doing so, we aim to lead, not follow.”

PROMOTING IRELAND The position of firms like Orecco and others is bolstered by SportsTech Ireland, which launched in June 2017 and aims to double the number of sports technology companies here by 2020. A not-for-profit whose goal is to promote Ireland as a world leader in sports technology, the organisation helps to develop startups, scale up existing enterprises and attract foreign direct investment into the country, supported in its work by a number of stakeholders including universities, Enterprise Ireland, and the IDA. InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 13:58

BUSINESS OF SPORT

“It’s like the new gold or the new oil,” SportsTech Ireland co-founder Gráinne Barry, whose background is in health technology, remarks of data analytics. “Certainly information can give you great insight, but it depends on how it’s used. Having all of the data [isn’t much use] if you can’t glean information or insight from it and make better decisions from it. In sport or in any other kind of business – that’s the key.”

SportsTech Ireland’s work encompasses a number of projects and initiatives aimed at companies at all stages of development. Its incubator programme takes early stage ideas through a nine-step programme to lay the foundations for success; a dedicated hub provides start-ups with co-working space and a sports performance lab to experiment with and grow ideas; and a programme for established companies matches participants with industry experts, both internationally but also in Ireland. “There’s certainly a passion for sports here, but there’s also a proficiency in data analytics and technology that exists in Ireland,” says Barry. “That’s the reason why all the big technology companies are based here.”

Limerick in particular is home to a growing cluster of sports technology companies, perhaps the natural choice given its reputation as the ‘City InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

024 InBusiness Q4 2017_Business of Sport.indd 25

of Sport’, home to the University of Limerick, a trained and able workforce, as well as an international airport in nearby Shannon. Sports data giant STATS, of which Barry is now Regional Operations Director, announced the opening of its EMEA headquarters in the midwestern city in October 2017, and is set to employ over 100 full and part-time employees by early 2018.

Investments like this lend credence to Ireland’s ability to compete on the global stage when it comes to sports technology, paving the way for further growth and an increasing share of a lucrative market. I ask Dr Moore whether it’s fair to describe Ireland and Irish companies like Orreco as world leaders in sports technology. His reply is modest, but recognises the potential that’s based on these shores.

“In my opinion, that type of an attribution is determined by your customers and by the market,” he says. “In saying that, to see products and services from Ireland’s sports tech cluster like Statsports (Newry), Shadowman (Limerick) and our own being signed and renewed by world-leading franchises and athletes shows that we can compete with the best. In the same way athletes are trying to get better every day, we as companies are all motivated to do the same.”

4

IRISH FIRMS FLYING THE FLAG FOR SPORTS TECH KITMAN LABS Founded in November 2012

by Stephen Smith, Kitman Labs works with sports organisations to help prevent injury risks and increase player availability.

HEADRITE SPORTS Develops a training apparatus designed to improve the timing of headers and decrease head injuries, monitoring performance using wearable technology.

CÚ BALL A start-up combining traditional sport with video graphics to create an augmented reality environment where gamers can play against athletes.

HUGGITY Based in Dublin, Huggity uses custom-built experiential technologies to boost fan engagement, analysing trends, user behaviour and online platforms.

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22/12/2017 13:58

INDUSTRY FEATURE

WITH THE SECOND ART$UMMIT IRELAND HAVING TAKEN PLACE IN DUBLIN LAST NOVEMBER, TIERNAN CANNON TAKES THE PULSE OF THE ART INVESTMENT SECTOR HERE AND SEEKS ADVICE FROM ONE ENTHUSIASTIC INVESTOR.

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:21

INDUSTRY FEATURE

T

he art world is a realm that can prove difficult to comprehend and predict, particularly from an investment point of view. As with any form of investment, however, the more one understands a given market, the more likely it is that there will be a better return. While the art market can be notoriously fickle, it is not without its trends and indicators that potential investors can learn to read. One needs only pay attention and learn as much as possible about the way the market functions to gain a much more solid grounding upon which to make more informed decisions.

It is this thinking that led Art$ummit, an annual conference that merges the art and business worlds into one discussion, to take place at the start of November 2017 in Dublin. The conference aimed to provide its attendees – whether those with an art background looking to understand the intricacies surrounding wealth management issues or those with a financial background wishing to learn about investing in art through collection and wealth management strategies – with the knowledge and insight necessary to succeed in the changing landscape of the art market in Ireland today.

The conference was established by Rosanne McDonnell, a consultant solicitor and passionate advocate of Irish art collecting. After time spent travelling and attending art conferences in London, New York, Switzerland and other parts of Europe, McDonnell had immersed herself in understanding the legal and business challenges that various art markets face. Before long, she had developed a network of art experts internationally – a network which ultimately would enable her to found Art$ummit. More generally though, building networks within the art world, she says, is in itself an essential component of success within the art investment market, as it allows one to gain the widest scope and impression possible.

“Networking and sharing of information is vital to a successful art market,” she says. “No one person has all the expertise, and this is why I decided to create [Art$ummit]. It is a collaboration of all people within the art market encompassing tax experts, legal advisors, dealers, art economists in all aspects of wealth and collection management.”

Networking creates a strong basis of understanding within the market, and once links have been established, it allows an investor to concentrate on their personal investment strategy. An approach that McDonnell has seen to be effective in this regard is

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the diversification of genres PUTTING of the artworks being invested ART TO in. The benefits to this THE TEST approach are essentially the same as diversifying within Buying art pieces for large sums of any market – in layman’s money without terms, it prevents all of an seeing them up investor’s eggs from being in close and personal one basket. is a risky business.

“The reason for diversity Irish start-up Artfetch, which in amongst genres is that if one 2016 was acquired wishes to liquidate their art

by UK company collection to raise finance, the Rise Art, can help. market will respond better The company, to different works of art at which promotes and sells the various times, and so the work of more than art collection will maintain 70 international a certain level of value artists, taking a which appeals throughout commission on all its lifetime,” explains sales made through the website, allows McDonnell. “Most people you to rent some of who start out investing in their pieces by the art tend to initially focus on month. It’s an ideal genres such as impressionism, way to test your post-impression, American love before you actually commit. abstract expressionism and post-war European painting. www.riseart.com They are principally informed by global economics and sales patterns, such as the art auction results of Christie’s or Sotheby’s.”

Diversifying one’s collection and keeping an eye on the trends of the leading auctioneers is certainly a helpful way to establish a footing within the art market, however there are still no guarantees. Like the stock market, prices in art rise and fall, and can do so sharply and without much warning. Art has no intrinsic monetary value and its price is based on what someone is prepared to pay on a given day. It might be the case that a piece triples in value over ten years, or it might end up being worth less than what one initially paid for it. Given this unpredictablity, there is a consistent piece of advice offered to investors by experts and those familiar with the manner of the market – invest in what you love.

INVEST WITH PASSION John Cunningham, who will be familar to some readers as Chair of the Chambers Ireland CSR Awards judging panel, is a businessman who invests in art. He is currently spearheading a campaign with the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) to raise substantial private funding for contemporary artists in Ireland. The fund was established in response to the severe funding cuts to the arts sector made since 2008 and has so far helped raise over 250,000.

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INDUSTRY FEATURE

to look after the piece after the purchase has been made. This will involve a good deal of research to establish how best to preserve the integrity of the specific piece, but in order for it to maintain and hopefully increase its value, it will need to be kept in as fine a condition as possible.

James Joyce sculpture by sculptor Rowan Gillespie, which stands in the Merrion Hotel Garden, a hotel that boasts one of the largest private art collections in Ireland

Rosanne McDonnell, founder, Art$ummit Ireland

Water colour landscape by Dieter Blodau, a German artist who, during the 1960s, moved to Ireland and lectured at the Limerick School of Art and Design

Cunningham himself has been collecting art for many years and has thus gained a manner of insight on the market’s workings. Like McDonnell, Cunningham advises potential art investors to do their research and to diversify their collection if possible, but claims that the most important action an investor can take is to put money into art they feel passionate about.

“Having been collecting for all those years, I’ve got a view that to go down the route of collecting art solely as an investment is something to feel a little dubious about – I think you have to buy what you like,” he asserts. “I think that, yes, if you’re somebody with endless amounts of money who wants to put together a stunning investment for the future, there are certainly things you can do from the point of view of analysing the sales and understanding who the top ten or 15 artists are in the Irish or international sense. But I think the most important thing is to buy what you like.”

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026 InBusiness Q4 2017_Industry Feature.indd 28

Cunningham encourages anyone to invest in art, regardless of the sums of money they have at their disposal. Though art collection and investment can generally be perceived as an expensive, highbrow pursuit, the pieces themselves needn’t be overly lavish and expensive assets. There are endless amounts of pieces for sale that won’t necessarily break the bank, ensuring the market is open to anybody with an interest. Still, it can be difficult for first-time investors to know how to proceed, so as well as buying what one loves, Cunningham offers a further piece of advice that has stood to him personally over the years.

“If you’re going to buy a particular artist, buy a good piece,” he advises. “If you’re going to buy, say, a Yeats painting, buy a good one. Don’t become obsessed with the artist themselves, but rather by a quality piece of work.”

While it might seem like an attractive prospect to buy a somewhat off-kilter piece from a given artist, their best work is more likely to appreciate in value than an inferior but more well-known piece by the same artist. In essence, having a name doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a quality piece.

A further essential point that investors should take note of is

STATE OF THE MARKET Though it suffered greatly after the 2008 global financial crisis, the global art investment market has shown signs of recovery – though not always consistent – and is worth billions to the global economy.

According to a 2017 report published

by Deloitte, the overall art fund market in the first half of 2017 was conservatively estimated to be worth US$834 billion, down US$1.03bn from 2016. In spite of this, the report suggests, there are signs particularly in the US and European markets that new art investment funds are seeking to enter the market.

The Irish art investment market is relatively small and is therefore bound to global trends. Art sales are extremely unevenly distributed around the world, with art centres such as London and New York taking up a significant proportion of the market share. Thus, what happens in these centres affects the smaller markets like Ireland.

Nonetheless, there is potential in this country for further growth, as Rosanne McDonnell suggests: “Ireland does have a healthy art market that we should be proud of, and I believe that there is huge potential for growth once it is recognised and embraced.”

From an investment point of view, art is a high-risk strategy. The market is changeable and difficult to predict and returns are by no means a guaranteed outcome. However, it is a unique investment market that offers much more than returns and profit, as John Cunningham is at pains to stress: “The greatest value you’re going to get is having a home that is thoroughly and utterly enhanced by the presence of art.

That to me is the real winner.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:21

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19/12/2017 13/12/2017 09:56 08:32

FEATURE

Where

Passenger footfall is up, but Ireland’s regional airports still face challenges in 2018. InBUSINESS checks in at the departure lounges in Kerry and Knock to see how they’re working to improve infrastructure and attract popular new routes.

Business

is

Flying

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030 InBusiness Q4 2017_Regional Airports.indd 30

I

reland’s regional airports, strategically located around the country in Donegal, Kerry, Waterford and Knock, were developed in the 1980s to provide improved connectivity both nationally and internationally. The aim was that they would deliver significant social and economic benefits to the areas they serviced at a time when rail and road connections were failing.

Their importance continues to be recognised, specifically by the Regional Airports Programme 2015-2019, a capital expenditure grant scheme that has delivered improvements in security and safety in the form of modern CCTV monitoring equipment, repairs to taxiways, aprons and perimeter roads, upgrades to electrical systems and winter-ready equipment.

“The National Aviation Policy 2015 acknowledges the role played by the regional airports in promoting a level of international connectivity to support the tourism and business sectors in their regions,” Minister for Transport Shane Ross noted during the first allocation of funds in 2017. “The grant allocations announced today demonstrate the Government’s continuing financial support for safety and security measures at these airports.”

CAPITAL INVESTMENT For Kerry and Ireland West Airport Knock (IWAK) in particular, 2017 has been a year of growth, with vast improvements in both airport InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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FEATURE

infrastructure and the acquisition and development of new services.

The total number of passengers through Kerry Airport from January to September 2017 was 259,736, a growth of 1.94 per cent for that period. Not only has the airport increased its frequency of core routes, such as the popular Kerry to Dublin service, but it has also experienced an increase in footfall to popular European destinations.

“We’ve been able to add on a new Berlin to Kerry route which started in November, twice a week, which would have been our first major Ryanair addition now for a couple of years, with growth as well on the other routes,” says Basil Sheerin, Financial Controller at Kerry Airport. “By the end of the year, we will hopefully grow by 4 per cent overall.”

Meanwhile in Knock, the western airport has seen a record number of passengers this year. Figures rose by an impressive 2.33 per cent between in the first nine months of 2017, compared to the same period the year before. According to Joe Gilmore, Managing Director of IWAK, they’re now expecting to hit the 750,000 passenger mark for the first time.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

030 InBusiness Q4 2017_Regional Airports.indd 31

“That will be close to 3 per cent growth on last year,” he notes. “And we’ve seen strong growth in the existing route network in terms of the numbers of people travelling on the existing services and the load factors have all increased.”

That growth has been facilitated to a large extent by the Regional Airports Programme and its budget of some a1.94 million, boosting capabilities in a variety of scenarios such as air traffic control – a vital cog in any airport’s operation.

Sheerin notes that without the grants supplied by the Department of Transport under the programme, these projects would be financially difficult for regional airports to maintain on a long-term basis, and highlight the Department’s interest in developing regional airport traffic in the years ahead. “I think they have a keen interest in airport growth and they work very well with us,” he explains.

Upgrades to IWAK, which have also stemmed from these grants, have contributed to the funding of essential safety and security services within the airport. “In terms of the necessary security equipment and any of the various safety projects we’ve received

funding for between 75 and 90 per cent of the cost of each of the projects. So we appreciate that,” says Gilmore, though he adds that the programme falls short in several key areas, namely its lack of focus on commercial services that wasn’t present in previous programmes. “The challenge with the programme has been [that], while it has supported safety and security projects and we acknowledge that, there’s been no funding available for commercial or facilities improvements. So in terms of passenger handling and commercial, car parking and nonsafety and security programmes, we have to find the funding ourselves.”

CHALLENGES AHEAD While improving safety and security facilities is a top priority for any airport, issues like passenger handling and car parking facilities are undoubtedly important in attracting new airlines and routes to their respective regions. That’s vital, not just in terms of ensuring their survival, but allowing our regional airports to grow and expand their operations and ensure their longterm viability.

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FEATURE

But it’s not easy, particularly as they’re competing with one of Europe’s busiest airports in Dublin. According to Gilmore, around 87 per cent of air access currently comes through Dublin. And, not only do airlines have the challenge of maintaining their current services, Gilmore adds that with the closure of several airlines in recent years there’s a difficulty in engaging with new airlines and enticing them to venture beyond the capital city.

“I think there’s kind of two challenges there really,” he says. “It’s maintaining the existing service offering and growing new services.

In the context of massive growth, airlines are operating in an environment where they want to guarantee the security of their yields and their returns and airlines will generally choose the larger centres to fly into initially.”

Some clever thinking is required. For Sheerin and Kerry Airport, the solution lies in Ireland’s regional airports being more dynamic in their marketing approach.

Businesses all along the western seaboard have been capitalising on the huge success of the Wild Atlantic Way tourist initiative, and the airports are following suit.

“I think the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland’s Ancient East are brilliant marketing tools and I think that more focus should be put on attracting people to those attractions via the airports,” says Sheerin. “Instead of people flying to an airport, they are flying to a destination.”

In order for this strategy to be effective, Sheerin notes that there needs to be focused government policy that will promote the

Basil Sheerin, Financial Controller, Kerry Airport

Joe Gilmore, Managing Director, Ireland West Airport Knock

REGIONAL ACCESS

So what are the routes connecting our four regional airports with the world?

KNOCK • Birmingham • Bristol • East Midlands • Edinburgh • Liverpool • London Gatwick • London Luton • London Stansted • Manchester, • Milan • Faro • Fatima • Alicante • Barcelona • Cadiz • Lanzarote • Malaga • Salou • Tenerife • Lourdes • Medjugorje • Dubrovnik • Lapland WATERFORD • Birmingham • London Luton • Manchester KERRY • Dublin • London Luton • London Stansted • Faro • Alicante • Frankfurt Hahn • Berlin DONEGAL • Dublin • Glasgow

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030 InBusiness Q4 2017_Regional Airports.indd 32

regional airports as a valuable tourism product, particularly in overseas markets such as Germany, France or Italy.

Other development moves are underfoot, part of a wide-ranging strategy to reach and exceed their potential. In 2018, Kerry Airport plans to add an extension to its departures area, facilitating a quicker turnaround of aircraft but also creating a more welcoming environment for passengers – important for its reputation and for repeat business. “That’s going on as we speak,” he explains. “At the moment we’re looking at some more internal work here in the bar and restaurant area itself and we’re looking at an upgrade on those facilities in the next six months.”

Up in Knock, the outlook is also optimistic.

The airport is currently in the planning stages of a major refurbishment of the main runway, with additional projects due to commence throughout 2018. Alongside the ongoing upgrade and capital investment programme, IWAK plans on developing a number of new services in the next 12 to 18 months, centred around routes in European destinations including Germany and France, with the possibility of routes launching to the US. “I think we’ve had a good year and we’re optimistic going into 2018 with a bit of a health warning around the potential impacts of Brexit and global or regional economic events and all of the health warnings you have to put up with in terms of this industry,” says Gilmore. “Over the next five years, we are planning to invest about a30 million here in a variety of capital programmes covering desk facilities, terminal, car parking, runway, expansion of the main parking apron as well so that there’s quite a broad range of infrastructure improvement projects we’re planning.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 13:53

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20/12/2017 19/12/2017 16:59 01/12/2017 15:09 21/07/2016 16:38 17:15

FEATURE

SNAP

CHAT Derek McDonnell, Wellbeing Programme Director, Mojo

“The main challenges the men [coming to Mojo] report are feeling

anxious, depressed, and having low self-esteem. This results in men feeling

isolated and having very little hope for their future.”

Aimed at reducing the high levels of male suicide in Ireland, the Mojo programme creates a space to help men help themselves. The man who set it up, Derek McDonnell, tells InBUSINESS why employers now need to engage in the conversation on mental health.

Men face the highest risk of suicide of any group especially those in middle age. In Ireland, 80 per cent of people who die by suicide are men, so we decided to specialise in engaging them.

We are fast becoming a leader and defender of men’s mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Like many people in Ireland, employers are often afraid to talk about mental health as they don’t always understand it. We need to train employers to begin the conversation on mental health.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

035 InBusiness Q4 2017_Snap Chat.indd 35

The cost to a company that fails to address issues related to mental health can include staff absenteeism, reduced productivity, poor performance, low morale and high staff turnover.

Supporting staff to look after their mental health and explore their options to manage emerging mental health issues will result in a happier and more productive workforce.

Within the programme, men build their mental and physical fitness, learn to engage with local services and the community, set goals, and develop a life plan.

Many men are afraid

that talking about their mental health challenges might mean that they will be passed up for promotion.

To achieve our vision of having a Mojo project in every county, we need to form partnerships with those in the business community. Investment is important to us, but so too is organisational support.

For more information on Mojo and how you can get involved visit www.mojo.ngo

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22/12/2017 13:41

FEATURE

With a considerable number of international trade missions setting off from Ireland each year, TIERNAN CANNON explores their role and whether or not they provide any meaningful results for Irish businesses.

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036 InBusiness Q4 2017_Trade Mission.indd 36

or companies based in a small island economy such as Ireland, exporting overseas presents a significant opportunity for long-term success. For obvious reasons, however, the Irish case has become more complex of late, as the future of its trading relationship with its neighbour and biggest trading partner is called into question. As attempts to define Ireland and the UK’s future trading relationship continues, many Irish businesses are now looking further afield in search of new markets.

Trade missions can be seen as an early step in this endeavour, allowing businesses to travel abroad to meet and forge relationships with new potential buyers and sellers. Trade missions tend to be organised by one or more governmental agency and are often sector-specific, bringing a group of delegates offering certain products or services to a foreign country in need of those particular products or services. Irish trade missions are mostly run by a variety of state and semi-state organisations, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Bord Bia and Tourism Ireland.

While trade missions can prove to be an essential step for an Irish company attempting to break into a new market, it should be thought of as just that – a single step in the overall process. That’s according to Leo McAdams, Divisional Manager for International Sale and Partnering at Enterprise Ireland, who explains that companies should by no means expect the deals to come in immediately after a quick meet and greet.

“A company’s export strategy is obviously long-term and being on a trade mission is a part of that,” he suggests. “We would always say to companies that a trade mission is just one piece [of an export strategy]. They need to be back in the market again and again and again afterwards. It’s not just that they go on a trade mission, secure a deal and then go on the next one.”

Trade missions make for a good early step in a company’s export strategy, but even getting to this point can prove challenging.

For those businesses without experience of trade missions, it can be difficult to know InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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FEATURE

where to begin. However, there are a host of Irish organisations that offer services and advice on the subject, so before looking abroad it is essential to develop relationships at home.

Organisations such as Enterprise Ireland, IDA, as well as the various Chambers around the country all lead trade missions, and making contact with them is a good way for Irish businesses to start out. After all, it is these organisations who will ultimately decide who to bring along, as Peter Byrne, CEO of South Dublin Chamber, points out.

“We choose on the basis of market opportunity for our members, ease of entry to that market, and the existing links the chamber has in that place to ensure a realistic support for our members,” he explains. “We try to encourage those that have exporting potential and discourage those that still need to reach that stage, as their time is better invested at home in developing their business.”

GAINING INSIGHT Gareth Coleman is the commercial director of Limerick-based dairy company Glenstal Foods. Over the years, Coleman has been on two trade missions, most recently to Japan and South Korea as part of a trade visit run by the Department of Agriculture and Bord Bia. He explains that the structure of the trip allowed him and the other delegates to gain an insight into the Japanese marketplace, which otherwise would have been difficult to obtain.

“Bord Bia organised very appropriate seminars about the Japanese country, in terms of doing business in Japan and the structure of the dairy market,” he explains.

“They organised speakers with good knowledge of the dairy sector of Japan, and they also organised a networking event in the evening where Japanese-style food was prepared using Irish ingredients.

They invited along key industry figures and that gave us an opportunity to introduce ourselves and to swap business InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

036 InBusiness Q4 2017_Trade Mission.indd 37

Graham Turner, Founder, Flight Centre, President Michael D Higgins, Sabina Higgins and Martin Shanahan, CEO of IDA Ireland pictured during an IDA-supported trade visit to Australia in October 2017

cards. We also did some store visits to see what the supermarket layouts were like in Japan and how different they are to Ireland.”

Trade missions such as this allow Irish businesses to gain a unique insight into new markets and make face-to-face contact with potential partners. While these benefits are clear, there are more subtle advantages to be found in a group of business representatives working within similar fields travelling to a new marketplace together, as Leo McAdams from Enterprise Ireland suggests.

“A huge benefit that keeps being fed back to us from companies is the connectivity between the Irish companies that go out,” he says. “So if you have 20 Irish companies in a room who are travelling out together, there is an incredible amount of sharing of knowledge and market information and intel between those companies themselves.”

All in all then, trade missions have the potential to expand the knowledge of the delegates who go on them and to prepare companies for new business customs. They help businesses to establish contacts and to, as it were, get a foot in the door within these new marketplaces.

However, they are one part of the process and continued work is necessary long after the trade mission has ended.

“It does work, it does help,” concludes Gareth Coleman. “But you still have to work at it – there’s no overnight success. There will not be an overnight success with Japan and Korea for our business, but it’s a starting point. I always say to people that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

I wasn’t expecting to win any sales over there immediately – I think that would be aspirational. But I would be hoping that this time next year, we will be doing more business in the region.”

DID YOU KNOW? The Department of Agriculture and Bord Bia-run trade mission to Japan attended by Gareth Coleman took place following a landmark trade agreement between the EU and Japan in the summer of 2017, which will phase out high tariffs on sectors including dairy and beef.

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MENTORS

MENTOR: DERVLA MURPHY

On Her Own

TERMS I

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Irish literary legend Dervla Murphy talks to JOSEPH O’CONNOR about her latest work, hanging up her backpack, and why lessons will be learned from the 21st century. n Garret Daly’s 2010 documentary Who is Dervla Murphy?, we are told how the enigmatic travel writer’s publisher once warned a journalist before interviewing Murphy that doing so would be tantamount to “opening an oyster with a wet bus ticket”. It was with that analogy in mind that I travelled to Lismore, Co Waterford, to meet with the best-selling author and adventurer at a place she has called home for 86 years.

Our meeting had been a long time in the making. Murphy initially cancelled our first interview in October due to having been hit with a chest infection. In an email, she described how it was the very same day that she had been listening to Theresa May on the radio battle a coughing fit while speaking at a Conservative party conference. “I really felt sorry for her,” she wrote. “We were at exactly the same stage of being unable to talk without coughing!”

It was six weeks later, when both May and Murphy were in full recovery, that I arrived at the latter’s home having been told that her dogs would be there to alert her of my arrival. With not a dog in sight or a bark to be heard, I was forced to trespass the property and call her name until she appeared. On meeting, Murphy doesn’t disappoint. Indeed, she is everything you’d expect of someone who has been described as egocentric and unapologetically non-conformist.

In fine hospitable form, she welcomes me into her home and, as promised, has two bottles of German beer at the ready (Murphy is a renowned lover of beer and brewed her own for many years). We settle down in the very room in which she penned over 20 titles spanning over

50 years; a setting that could just as easily be from the ’60s as from today. On her desk, a faded Tibetan flag given to her by the Dalai Lama some 53 years ago covers her typewriter. She sits in an armchair positioned under a dimly lit floor lamp, in front of a library of neatly assembled books.

Extreme Rambling by Mark Thomas and Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei by Robert Hutchinson are a couple of titles that catch my eye. An old map of the Middle East is pinned on the wall behind me.

Murphy is currently halfway through her latest book, which is focused on her travels in Jordan in 2015 and 2016, where she lived with Palestinian refugees at the Jabal el-Hussein camp in Amman. “It will be, if I ever get it finished, a general consideration of the Palestinian refugees’ particular situation there,” she says. Murphy questions ever finishing it because, at present, she is at a standstill with her writing due to what she describes as osteoarthritis in her neck. “It makes the writing posture and the typing posture very painful,” she tells me.

It helps that, coincidentally, I have just returned from a visit to Jordan myself, and so Murphy is clearly delighted to talk at length about the country and its politics. She has the skill of diverting attention away from herself down to a fine art, but does take a genuine interest in hearing about my own experiences and travels.

The interview is undoubtedly on her terms.

AT FULL TILT Murphy is most widely recognised for her 1965 debut memoir Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, in which she recounts her epic cycle from Lismore to India during one of the harshest winters of the 20th century. She would go on to write other critically acclaimed books based on InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:19

MENTORS

I’M AN OPTIMIST YOU SEE. I THINK THE 22ND CENTURY

BY NATURE,

WILL PROBABLY BE AN

Jen Murphy

IMPROVEMENT BECAUSE WE WILL HAVE DONE SO MUCH DAMAGE THAT AT LAST WE’LL HAVE LEARNED A FEW LESSONS.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

038 InBusiness Q4 2017_Mentors.indd 39

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Paddy Barker

MENTORS

On her bike: A young Dervla in Barcelona

Dervla: “I would only read the travel writers that I really admire for their literary style rather than for their journeys.”

her travels such as In Ethiopia with a Mule (1968), Muddling through in Madagascar (1985), Transylvania and Beyond (1993) and A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza (2103), as well as her revealing autobiography Wheels Within Wheels (1979).

While her writing may have taken a back seat for the moment, does Murphy have any travel plans on the horizon? “I’d say my travelling days are over,” she says without showing any sign of regret or self pity. “Well, fair enough, at 86, I can’t complain,” she laughs, before reflecting on one of her favourite destinations.

“I often think of the places that I have been – my favourite places in the old days.

The most obvious is Afghanistan, which has always been one of my favourite countries, and it irritates me so much when I hear people describing it as one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s simply totally untrue. When I was there I did not see any poverty, what I saw was underdevelopment.

In the villages there was no running water or no electricity, no tarmac roads and you see now people confuse the lack of those things with poverty. The majority of human beings have lived all the millennia without electricity or piped water coming out of taps. We’ve got a completely skewed view.”

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Tom Bunning

Dervla does Cuba in one of her later trips

“THE

PUBLISHING SCENE IS

COMPLETELY

DIFFERENT TODAY, AND IF

I WAS

STARTING OUT NOW WITH WHATEVER SORT OF

WRITING TALENT THAT I HAVE, I DON’T THINK I COULD MAKE A LIVING OUT

OF IT.”

Her observations on Afghanistan are telling of someone who holds no desire for material possessions. She lives a frugal existence, interested only in her time alone spent writing, reading and keeping in touch with her daughter and three granddaughters who live between England, Italy and Germany. She also spends time walking her dogs and listening to global affairs on the BBC World Service and Al-Jazeera, a media outlet she says she has become ever more reliant on for discovering “what’s really going on in the world”.

Discussion turns to climate change, Trump, Brexit, the refugee crisis and the general problems in the world today. “I think the 21st century is going to be a very, very tough century, and I think that we are going to do so much damage to the environment and to the human race,” says Murphy. “But by nature, I’m an optimist you see. I think the 22nd century InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:19

MENTORS

Dervla with her daughter Rachel muddling through Madagascar Dervla in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 1967

Dervla with the bike that took her to India

will probably be an improvement because we will have done so much damage that at last we’ll have learned a few lessons.”

While not an overly keen adopter of new technology herself (she still handwrites her first drafts much to the dismay of her publisher), Murphy believes it will play a significant role in our future. “They say that it’s just ten years since the smartphone came on the scene and apparently transformed so many lives,” she says. “So when you think of the changes that it alone has brought about in ten years, it’s just impossible to imagine what the next ten years will do. But when we’ve woken up, I think climate change is going to teach us a lot of lessons and bring about a lot of extra suffering, so it’s nothing to celebrate.”

A TRANSFORMED INDUSTRY Of course, the industry from which Murphy made a living is among those that has been transformed dramatically by technological advancements. “The publishing scene is completely different today, and if I was starting out now with whatever sort of writing talent that I have, I don’t think I could make a living out of it,” she says. “I InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

038 InBusiness Q4 2017_Mentors.indd 41

DERVLA MURPHY ON...

BEING DESCRIBED AS A PIONEER FOR WOMEN I think that’s rubbish, absolute rubbish. People love using those labels.

It’s ridiculous. I just did what I wanted to do.

TRAVEL VS WRITING For me they go together, but I don’t read travel writing. I would only read the travel writers that I really admire for their literary style rather than for their journeys.

THE 2010 DOCUMENTARY ‘WHO IS DERVLA MURPHY?’ I’ve never seen it, I wouldn’t want to see it.

think now the writer has to move much more into the multimedia space – radio, television, doing lecture tours. I never did any of that and I don’t think you could make a living, as I did, from just writing books.”

If she was 30 years old all over again, would she she make the same choices? “I think I probably would,” she says. I suggest that with her interest in global affairs and her empathy towards those who are suffering in the world, she might consider a career in development.

“When we talk about getting into development, it’s a pretty dodgy area,” she says. “It’s an area that on the whole has Western people – the Europeans and North Americans – striding in with all their resources, funding and all the rest of it. But the majority of those experts are pig ignorant compared with the local farmers for whom they say they are going out to teach about how to grow coffee or rice.”

Murphy clearly holds little regard for many international bodies working in the sector.

“These organisations just bring corruption with them,” she says. “The UN and its various agencies, with very few exceptions, must be one of the most corrupt institutions in the world, and yet we have the cheek to criticise African and Asian countries for being corrupt.

They are corrupt, but we are equally so.”

Murphy says she regularly receives manuscripts from young aspiring writers looking for feedback on their work. What advice does she give those eager to take a similar path in life, albeit one in a very different age? “It would be to choose a place or region that they are particularly interested in, or drawn to. A lot of these youngsters have one year off after university or before university. I would say not to try, as so many of them seem to do nowadays, to fit as many countries into that year. Let’s say they have six months. I’d advise them to choose one or two regions – two maximum – and spend at least three months in each, not just charging around. Travel on their own or just with one friend, but preferably on their own, and not in groups.”

I conclude our interview by referencing the oyster analogy and admit to having felt some anxiety ahead of our meeting as a result of it. Murphy bursts into laughter. I assure her that it didn’t feel that way but, of course, that’s before I listen back to the recording and realise that I had in fact been the one doing most of the talking.

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22/12/2017 11:19

SMALL BUSINESS FEATURE

THE SUM OF ITS Having built their business into one of the country’s most promising indigenous e-commerce companies, Mayo twins Mick and Ciaran Crean of car parts website MicksGarage.com have set their sights on a a100m turnover in the next five years.

InBUSINESS caught up with Mick to hear more about the small business with big ambitions.

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Q: Could you give us

Q: Any latest trends

some background on MicksGarage and how you started the business?

A: The business was started by my brother Ciaran and I back in 2004 when I found myself unemployed. The idea was to learn how to build an e-commerce software system, and as I had worked in car parts I decided to use that as a test bed. We started small as a dropshipper, but slowly started to add stock and expand the business.

shaping your industry right now?

A: Brexit is a real concern and is shaping most industries. With Sterling so weak, the motor industry in Ireland is really suffering through cheap car imports from UK. There are also plenty of competitors making moves on the Irish market, however to offset that, we are making big gains in UK market.

Q: Who are your typical clients?

A: They would be made up of 90 per cent end users and 10 per cent nixer-type mechanics.

Q: What would you say most differentiates you from other car parts providers?

A: Our technology allows you to find the correct part in under three clicks, our prices are completely transparent and when InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:29

SMALL BUSINESS FEATURE

we say we will deliver, we deliver. It’s about trust and customers place their trust in us to do the job. We follow through on that.

you have to get a new one. As long we are among the contenders for new business, we will grow. I don’t expect any negative impact.

Q: What would you say are the biggest challenges you face as a small business in Ireland?

A: Hiring and retaining the right staff is our biggest challenge. We have to compete with multinationals such as Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. They all have bigger paying power but you will never get the same experience there. We have made lots of mistakes in hiring staff from big companies such as these, smaller companies rarely work for them.

Q: Anything more the Government could be doing to help businesses like yours?

A: Yes, they can certainly help entrepreneurs with Capital Gains Tax. In the UK, it is a far more attractive system. In fact, the biggest risk to businesses like ours is the housing crisis. If rents are going up, it’s ultimately businesses that will have to foot the bill through increased wages. It’s not sustainable for smaller indigenous businesses like ours.

Q: Last year you expanded into the UK with a new facility in Barnsley. How do you expect your business to be impacted by Brexit?

A: Brexit is a huge uncertainty for us all, however we have to be pragmatic – no matter where you are if your headlamp is broken InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

042 InBusiness Q4 2017_Small Business Profile.indd 43

Q: Working in a family business environment – more advantages or disadvantages?

A: It’s not a family business as such, it was founded by Ciaran and I but we do not consider it a family business.

Trust within families is much stronger than trust outside; when push comes to shove, families will look after each other.

Q: How many staff do you have and how was business in 2017?

A: We have 55 staff including about 10 contract workers. Business was very good in 2017 and we are now in a very strong position for 2018.

Ciaran (left) and Mick Crean pictured back in 2013 with then Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the opening of their headquarters in Park West, Dublin

Q: Any funny story you Q: Where do you see the business going in the next five to ten years?

How would you define success?

A: I believe we will get to a100m turnover in next five years through a combination of mergers and grit. To me, success is about getting there and doing it through smarts and innovation.

Ultimately, getting to 1100m turnover means nothing unless the effort is rewarded through financial gain.

Q: Could you see yourself selling the company in the future?

A: Yes, isn’t every business for sale at the right price?

“I BELIEVE WE WILL GET TO

A100M TURNOVER IN NEXT FIVE YEARS

THROUGH A COMBINATION OF

MERGERS AND GRIT. TO ME,

SUCCESS IS ABOUT

GETTING THERE AND DOING IT THROUGH SMARTS AND

INNOVATION.”

can share with us relating to your business journey to date?

A: When you are dealing with retail there are always funny stories, however I would need a week to get into it. Maybe just one story that stands out is a customer that put their wiper blades on backwards. The plastic was on the windscreen with the rubber facing up. Of course, this was our fault as when it was delivered the box was upside down!

Q: Any company news you can share with us at this time?

A: Not at the moment, but we are excited about 2018 and very positive about the future.

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22/12/2017 15:58

IN CONVERSATION:

OPPORTUNITY Karl Fitzpatrick, president of Wexford Chamber, Managing Director of Chevron Training & Recruitment and Master Franchisee of Bricks 4 Kidz Ireland, tells InBUSINESS about how to recognise and grab opportunities.

KNOCKS

arl Fitzpatrick occupies an opportunistic mindset. In 2007, when legislation was coming into effect that required every property to have a building energy rating (BER) certificate, Fitzpatrick identified the opportunity and set about training to become a BER assessor. He soon diverted course, realising money wasn’t to be made in assessing, but in training assessors.

Looking for a partner, he approached the then manager of Chevron Training with a business plan. They agreed Fitzpatrick would take on 50 per cent of the business and become responsible for sales and marketing.

“Between 2007 and 2008 we turned over about a5 million and a net profit of a1.5m. We did the same the following year. Then the BER business started to fade away.

We always knew it would have a lifespan so we were looking for the next opportunity.”

Fitzpatrick knew the real test for the business would be life after 44

044 InBusiness Q4 2017_In Conversation.indd 44

Karl Fitzpatrick, Wexford Chamber President and Master Franchisee of Bricks 4 Kidz Ireland

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:26

IN CONVERSATION

POSITIONS AVAILABLE BER. He hired a researcher to look into EU directives that would bring about a mandatory training requirement. Chevron found its next opportunity in training people to install solar panels, biomass systems, heat pumps and wind turbines. While the BER training had all been conducted in a classroom setting, this training had to be done in a lab, as prescribed by FETAC. They purchased a 40-foot truck, kitted it out as a laboratory, got it accredited and travelled around the country delivering training from their mobile lab.

From there, Chevron entered the child and healthcare sectors.

In 2013, it converted its classroom programmes to online programmes and today offers further and higher education in the UK and Ireland. It bolted on a recruitment arm to its business, recognising that it had a good database of people trained in the child and healthcare sectors.

When attending a global conference on training, Fitzpatrick identified children’s educational play and engagement with STEM subjects as the next big thing in training.

“STEM is a major challenge globally in terms of engaging children,” he says. “Fifty per cent of jobs globally by 2030 will be focused in the area of STEM. So there’s huge pressure on dramatically increasing engagement with STEM. One of the ways it’s being done by advanced countries is, instead of taking a child out of its world of toys and play and bringing it into a formal world of textbooks, bringing education into their world, stuffing their toys with STEM education. That’s what educational play is all about – learning while playing.”

His interest piqued, Fitzpatrick started researching the sector. He came across Bricks 4 Kidz, a US company that had a franchise model based on teaching children STEM through Lego products.

“To most people, Lego is a brick but actually it has a huge range of products, from Duplo to the brick itself to the Lego Technic and robots InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

044 InBusiness Q4 2017_In Conversation.indd 45

Bricks 4 Kidz is currently recruiting franchisees across Ireland. “The franchisee is a management role and recruits people to deliver the training. It’s a low-risk self-employment model and we offer assistance in getting it set up. When a franchisee comes on board, we provide them with a 12-month marketing plan. It’s a full-time scalable business opportunity and we’re attracting very skilled people into the network,” Fitzpatrick explains.

Franchisees are also eligible for SURE, the Startup Refunds for Entrepreneurs, which offers tax relief on income tax paid in previous years.

For more information, visit bricks4kidz.ie.

programme. There’s huge learning ability in the product range,” enthuses Fitzpatrick.

He reached out to Bricks 4 Kidz, which were operating in 45 different countries and had awarded 750 franchises, and purchased the master franchise for Ireland and later for the UK. Today they have four franchisees in Ireland, 10 in the UK and Fitzpatrick has also recently signed an agreement to take over the master franchise rights for Europe.

Bricks 4 Kidz goes into primary schools delivering workshops during the various science, maths and technology weeks, and after-school classes. At secondary school level, the Lego robot and Technic projects and coding are introduced. Outside school, it delivers camps, birthday parties, and workshops. There are over 20 different revenue streams under the franchise, including Bricks 4 Biz, delivering team-building programmes and Lego Serious Play, focused on business strategy through Lego.

Fitzpatrick is serving as president of the Wexford Chamber of Commerce until December this year. At the beginning of his term, he identified three key focuses.

The first was filling empty retail units; the Chamber partnered with the Irish Franchise Association and held an event for franchises that had an interest in recruiting a franchisee in Wexford; they also

attended retail events and contacted businesses expanding in or entering Ireland to promote Wexford as a retail destination. Fitzpatrick’s second focus was helping businesses embrace opportunities online, and the Chamber has worked with the local enterprise offices to promote the online trading voucher to its members.

They also brought Google to Wexford to train businesses in trading online, SEO and Google AdWords. Access to finance was the other issue when Fitzpatrick began his term, and he organised events to illustrate the range of finance products and providers available for businesses.

Much has changed during his tenure and Fitzpatrick is positive about the outlook for Wexford.

There are a number of major building projects underway to help attract FDI and bypasses are being built for Enniscorthy and New Ross, which will alleviate traffic and access issues.

Although he’s no intention of practising, Fitzpatrick is currently undertaking a degree in law. “The reason I’m doing it is because our business is about risk and opportunity and I’m good at looking for opportunities, but if you’ve an opportunist mindset it’s hard to look through the lens of risk. I felt the best way for me to develop the analytical skills to assess risk would be to study law.”

Ever the opportunist.

45

22/12/2017 11:26

BOOK EXTRACT

“ THE PROPERTIES WERE BEING

OFFLOADED

BY NAMA

AT SOME 10 PER CENT OF THEIR ORIGINAL VALUE.”

In his new book NAMA-Land, journalist Frank Connolly unravels the scandal at the heart of NAMA, the agency created in 2009 to help contain the fallout of Ireland’s property crisis. In the following extract, Connolly outlines the series of events that led former NAMA official Enda Farrell to leak commercially sensitive information to third parties between May and July 2012. ehind the scenes, as far as Farrell was concerned, there was an unhealthy rush to complete valuations, many of which, he felt, were inadequately costed by some of the external agencies employed to provide a second opinion of his work and that of his colleagues. Farrell was under immense pressure to complete valuations and was working 12- to 14-hour days, bringing tens of thousands of certificates for signature by more senior personnel, before they were passed on to external loan valuers. When he complained that the process was not sufficiently thorough or professional he was told: “I am the bishop and you are the altar boy. Just get on with it.”

The message was that he could not possibly know how to value a semidetached bungalow in Mullingar or a suite of offices in the IFSC as professionally as the experienced people in the real estate business. Under pressure from bankers telling him that his valuations of assets were too low and from colleagues complaining that they could not sell properties because the values were too high, Farrell unsuccessfully sought a less stressful role within the agency, preferably in capital markets. Unable to take any more and temperamentally unsuited to the work he was being asked to do, Farrell pressed the self-destruct button.

He began to share information he had gathered over the previous 18 months and which he retained on spreadsheets containing the addresses and values of all NAMA properties. He provided a colleague with a valuation sought by one borrower, who was disputing the NAMA assessment of one property. He claims that he assisted a senior executive in accessing information on the value of a property in the southwest in 46

046 InBusiness Q4 2017_Book Extract.indd 46

which a relative of his colleague was interested. He retained copies of the tracker spreadsheets he had built up over his period with NAMA and sent them by email to his wife. He used his NTMA email address to forward information to various people inside and outside NAMA, which he believed was not confidential given that the banks were providing similar information to clients, although they were not, unlike him, subject to the provisions of the NAMA Act. He heard that another figure associated with NAMA had provided information on NAMA’s 20 top borrowers to a leading global investment company. He learned of ‘off-market’, below-value sales to investors which appeared to conflict with a requirement that all properties sold by the agency were to be subject to rigorous and transparent tender procedures. In late 2010, having made a decision to leave the agency, he obtained information on a NAMA property at Strawberry Beds in Lucan which he subsequently purchased at some 10 per cent of its value at the peak of the property market.

Before he departed, he shared confidential NAMA information concerning its entire US portfolio InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:25

BOOK EXTRACT

with a Dutch pension firm, one of whose directors, Barden Gale, he knew as a property advisor to the NPRF. He also provided extremely sensitive data relating to the assets of developer Garrett Kelleher, including the Spire project in Chicago, to a New York investment fund. He gave information to a third party on valuations of the Jervis Street Shopping Centre in Dublin, owned by Paddy McKillen.

He also knew that another colleague had shared confidential information with the Barclay brothers in London concerning McKillen’s ‘Coroin’ investment vehicle, which included the developer’s hotels in the city and which were the subject of litigation in the English High Court. He believed that certain borrowers and potential investors were being allowed significant information which gave them an advantage over others. Most, if not all, of the valuations circulated by Farrell in breach of NAMA confidentiality rules were based on 2009 valuations which were now two years out of date, given the further drop in the property markets.

Large multi-million asset portfolios sold in bundles by NAMA were given various names. One was Project Nantes, which comprised some a300 million of personal loans to the directors of the Avestus investment group led by a group of accountants and property experts who previously worked for financier and former Revenue Commissioner Derek Quinlan at his company Quinlan Private. Quinlan, like NAMA chairman Frank Daly, had served for many years with the Revenue Commissioners before he moved into property finance and acquisition.

The properties were being offloaded by NAMA at some 10 per cent of their original value. Among the properties was Sunday’s Well, a large house near Lucan close to land owned by Farrell’s father.

It had been owned by Avestus InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

046 InBusiness Q4 2017_Book Extract.indd 47

This is an extract from NAMA-Land: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Property Sell-off and the Creation of a New Elite, reprinted with permission from Gill Books. It is available in paperback for a16.99 from good bookshops or directly from www.gillbooks.ie.

director Thomas Dowd. With the assistance of the NAMA colleague who handled the portfolio, Farrell and his wife purchased the house from AIB, which was managing the loan on behalf of NAMA, for a410,000 in August 2011.

Farrell had informed NAMA two months earlier that he intended to resign from the organisation but agreed to spend some months completing valuation work until he finally parted company with the agency in February 2012. He took up a position in the Dublin office of London-based investment management firm Forum Partners.

CHOMSKY ON CONNOLLY Leading political scientist Noam Chomsky, who we interviewed in our Q2 issue, has endorsed Frank Connolly’s NAMA-Land.

The pair got to know each after Connolly produced a report in 2005 related to the Corrib gas controversy. Commenting on the book, Chomsky says: “Frank Connolly’s careful and penetrating investigative research has exposed critical truths about malfeasance in high places and the often ugly workings of political power generally, actions that have caused great harm to the general population.”

47

22/12/2017 11:25

WORLD REPORT

Striking a Chord in

Afghanistan JOSEPH O’CONNOR meets Dr Ahmad Sarmast, the Afghan music professor behind the revival of traditional music in his homeland.

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 15:37

WORLD REPORT “I’M A STRONG BELIEVER IN THE SOFT POWER OF MUSIC AND THAT

BELIEF WAS INSPIRED BY MY

FATHER WHO AS AN ORPHAN GREW UP TO BE A MUSICAL

STAR OF AFGHANISTAN.”

Dr Ahmad Sarmast with members of the Zohra Orchestra, the first ever all-female music ensemble in Afghanistan’s history

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

048 InBusiness Q4 2017_World Report.indd 49

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WORLD REPORT

AFGHANISTAN: AN UNLIKELY INVESTMENT While not an obvious choice for most companies looking to invest in new markets overseas, and despite the obvious security challenges remaining within Afghanistan, the country is making headway. This is evident in figures released by the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, an organisation established in 2003 charged with the registration, licensing, support and promotion of all investments in Afghanistan. According to the stats, Afghanistan has experienced unprecedented economic growth – GDP grew from $2.2 billion in 2002 to $19.19bn in 2015 – and some of the major international companies that have invested there in recent years include Toyota, Samsung, Siemens, Mastercard, Hyundai and Coca-Cola.

For more visit investinafghanistan.af

he first moment of clarity that came to Ahmad Sarmast after being hit by a suicide bomb blast in his native city of Kabul was one of defiance. That was back in 2014, when the music professor who founded the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) had become a prime target for the Taliban, a group that saw music and his work as a threat to their beliefs. The attack happened during one of his orchestra’s performances at the French Cultural Centre in Kabul, in which one German man was killed. Ironically, that very performance was a drama condemning suicide attacks.

“From the very first moment after the attack when I began thinking properly again, it was very clear to me that someone wanted to silence this nation again, someone wanted me dead, someone wanted me out of the country,” Sarmast tells me when we meet on the grounds of Mount Stewart in Co Down, where he is speaking at the 2017 Conversations Festival. “In this manner they can silence a music school, they can silence a nation, they can deprive a nation from their musical identity. Therefore, it was very, very clear to me that I should not give up. If I give up it means that the insurgency and the extremists are winning. I was not willing to give them that glory.”

As it turned out, Sarmast had been sitting just a few seats away from the teenage suicide bomber and as a result, had been hit by shrapnel, many pieces of which lodged in the back of his head. A few hours after regaining consciousness, Sarmast went about generating a response from his hospital bed. Together with a colleague from the institute, he drafted a press release and immediately sent it out to the Afghan media. The message it contained was clear. “I announced my resilience,” recalls Sarmast. “I said that if I had previously been considering leaving Afghanistan in one or two years’ time, now I was going to stay the course, until the music school was there for good and no one was in a position to silence it again.”

Sarmast was true to his word. After flying to Australia to undergo major surgery, he returned to Kabul to champion his ground-breaking project aimed at reviving traditional music education in Afghanistan.

A DISSIDENT Like many other Afghan academics and musicians at the time, Sarmast fled his homeland in the early 1990s when it was under Taliban

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Dr Sarmast with the Zohra Orchestra who performed at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2017

rule. After receiving a master’s degree in musicology from Moscow University in 1993, he applied for asylum in Australia where he continued his studies, completing a PhD in Arts at Monash University in 2005.

After the fall of the Taliban, he first returned to the Afghan capital in 2006 to assess the situation and to prepare a report about the state of music in post-Taliban Afghanistan. In this report, Sarmast drew up nine recommendations on what was needed in order to revive the musical tradition of Afghanistan, which included the promotion of musical diversity and exposing Afghan children to music. These recommendations would pave the way for ANIM which, following negotiations between Sarmast and the Ministry InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 15:38

WORLD REPORT

ANIM supports the most disadvantaged children in Afghanistan – orphans, streetworking vendors and girls

Negin Khpolwak, the first female conductor of Afghanistan

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

048 InBusiness Q4 2017_World Report.indd 51

of Education, and the raising of millions of dollars in donations, opened in 2010.

“I always had a dream to use the soft power of music to help reconstruct Afghanistan and rebuild the tradition of music and to promote musical and cultural diversity,” the 55-year old unassuming professor tells me.

“I’m a strong believer in the soft power of music and that belief was inspired by my father who as an orphan grew up to be a musical star of Afghanistan. That, in addition to using music as [a] soft power to transform society, in building bridges and healing, was enough reason for me to leave my life in Australia and come back to Afghanistan to help my motherland.”

ANIM’s mission statement is “to provide a dynamic, challenging, and safe learning environment for all students regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religious sect, or socio-economic circumstances.” It focuses particularly on supporting the most disadvantaged children in Afghanistan – orphans, street-working vendors and girls – no doubt influenced by Sarmast’s father’s own difficult upbringing. Significantly, each year the school reserves 50 per cent of the places for people from this demographic and reaches out to vulnerable and disadvantaged

Photography used courtesy of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music

ARTS DIALOGUE Dr Ahmad Sarmast visited Northern Ireland in October 2017 as part of the #ArtsDialogue collective, an international intergenerational team of musicians, artists, producers, writers and peace activists. The organisations represented in the collective are the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Beyond Skin (Northern Ireland), Heartbeat (Israel-Palestine), The Music Project (Sri Lanka), Escuelas de Paz (Colombia), Brehon Advisory (Middle East) and the United Network of Young Peace Builders regarding the #Youth4Peace initiative.

For more information visit www.artsdialogue.org

children through partnerships it has developed with NGOs. As the only music school in the country and with a restricted amount of places, Sarmast and his team are faced with the challenge of choosing those who are enrolled and those who get left behind. “While I would love to enrol and give an opportunity to every child to benefit from the power of music, given our limitations we try our best to enrol the most talented kids coming to us,” he notes. “We have a special test. It’s not a musical audition but mainly musical games which enable us to assess the musical aptitude of a child.”

One student who proved to have exceptional aptitude is Negin Khpolwak.

Having come from a poor family background in the Kunar province, a conservative area and one of the strongholds of the Taliban, she was sent to live in a children’s home in Kabul in order to get an education. There she developed a love of music and later auditioned to join the institute at the age of 13. Six years on, at the age of 19, she is Afghanistan’s first female conductor.

These are the kind of life transformations that Sarmast is witnessing at the institute. He also tells me of a young girl who used to sell chewing gum on the streets of Kabul who 51

22/12/2017 15:38

WORLD REPORT

“AFGHANISTAN IS

NOT ABOUT THE KALASHNIKOV,

AFGHANISTAN IS NOT ABOUT WAR, AFGHANISTAN IS NOT ABOUT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN. YES, WE HAVE THOSE CHALLENGES BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENT AFGHANISTAN THAT YOU CANNOT SEE IN THE MEDIA.”

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 15:38

WORLD REPORT

is now the concert master of the girls’ orchestra and who could soon be joining the junior faculty of the school. In her spare time, she makes a living teaching violin privately to boys and girls.

Then there’s the cello player who came from an orphanage in the conservative region of Nuristan.

According to Sarmast, she has became a role model not only for her province, but for the entire country.

The Afghan Youth Orchestra and William Harvey, the AYO conductor and violin team of ANIM at Carnegie Hall, New York in 2013

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

048 InBusiness Q4 2017_World Report.indd 53

DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS It is stories such as these coming from Afghanistan that Sarmast believes need to be told to the world. “I believe that it is significantly important to show a better side of Afghanistan, a positive side of Afghanistan,” he says passionately. “Yes, in the last 14 years, after the collapse of the Taliban, there has been a strong insurgency but at the same time there have been a lot of positive changes too. And communicating those positive changes definitely helps Afghanistan in many ways.

“When you are outside Afghanistan, the only thing that you hear from Afghanistan is about war. It’s about violence, it’s about terror attacks, and so on, which is extremely discouraging in terms of attracting tourism, in terms of attracting investment, in terms of attracting expertise to the country.”

Sarmast says that the music school is only one of many such positive stories and that’s why he never declines an opportunity to travel with the students. Indeed, the Zohra Orchestra, ANIM’S all-female musical ensemble, flew to Switzerland in October 2017 to perform at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and later performed concerts in Geneva, Zurich, Weimar and Berlin.

“It gives us an opportunity to change the perception of Afghanistan,” says Sarmast. “To show that Afghanistan is not about the Kalashnikov, Afghanistan is not about war, Afghanistan is not about discrimination against women. Yes, we have those challenges but there is a different Afghanistan that you cannot see in the media.”

He continues: “There is an Afghanistan that is beautiful. These young boys and girls performing in an orchestra – that is change. That is a change in a country where music was banned, where girls were prevented from being present in the community and in society, where a strong gender segregation existed. Now have a look, there’s a music school, there’s an opportunity for boys and girls to be involved in co-education, to play together, to develop together and also to contribute to the rebuilding of Afghanistan together. That’s the the image that I want the international community to have.”

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22/12/2017 15:38

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22/12/2017 12:09

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In fact, our child was born in Dublin in 2015. Working on the busiest motorway of the country at a time when its congestion levels are becoming a matter of national concern is a daily challenge. However, the job is made easier thanks to the excellent group of people working on the motorway. From Globalvia’s point of view, we are facing exciting years where Ireland will need to undertake significant investment in infrastructure to sustain economic growth. Some of that investment will focus on the installation of a variable speed limits and lanes controlling system on the M50, as well as the commencement of resurfacing works. At Globalvia, we look forward to playing our part. www.m50concession.com/www.globalvia.com InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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IB PARTNER FEATURE ENERGIA

GENE BROWNE | FOUNDER AND CEO, THE CITY BIN CO. My lightbulb moment happened when, in a previous life as a quality engineer, I realised that even the most traditional of industries could be transformed by focusing on customer service. Fast forward 20 years and that core purpose of delivering excellent customer experiences is still central to The City Bin Co. Back in 1997, nobody cared much about their waste. They put the waste in a bin, put the bin out for collection and didn’t worry about what happened next. They didn’t have particularly high expectations about the service either. So, we started The City Bin Co. with one big service idea, two customers, one second-hand truck and a shoestring budget. Our simple promise? A better level of service. Today, we service tens of thousands of businesses and homes from Galway to Dublin and have earned notable awards along the way. The City Bin Co. was the first and only company in the waste management industry to be placed on the ‘Index of Excellence’

by Excellence Ireland. The practice and pursuit of excellence is part of our culture. We have been recognised in the Deloitte Best Managed Companies (Ireland) four years in a row as well as having represented Ireland twice in the European Business Awards in the area of customer focus. The ‘Wall of WOWs’ (where we collect customer testimonials) in our Galway headquarters is a constant reminder to us that the customer is at the very heart of our business. With our flying bin – the sky’s the limit!

Gene Browne, Founder and CEO, The City Bin Co.

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21/12/2017 15:30

CHAMBERS NEWS

A ROUND UP OF ALL THE NEWS AND EVENTS FROM THE CHAMBER NETWORK NATIONWIDE

CHAMBERS

CATCH UP CHAMBERS GROUP WELCOMES EIB’S CONFIDENCE IN LIMERICK

Niamh Boyle, President, Chambers Ireland and Ian Talbot, Chief Executive, Chambers Ireland with representatives from the Chamber Network

CHAMBERS IRELAND LAUNCHES NEW BRAND

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new brand for Chambers Ireland and its affiliated Chambers across the country has been launched. The network’s new logo and tagline, ‘Advancing business together’, was designed to illustrate the ethos and heritage of the Chamber Network, reflecting the work being done on behalf of members in a range of different areas.

Chambers Ireland Chief Executive Ian Talbot welcomed the new brand, saying: “Our new logo and tagline perfectly encapsulate what we stand for. As the country’s largest business network founded in 1923, with some of our members dating back as far as the 1700s, we have substantial history, knowledge and a consistent background as the voice of the business community. Today, Chambers are more relevant than ever. As the needs of business change, we are consolidating our ability to adapt and meet the needs of our members through engagement, active listening and calls to action.”

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The Atlantic Economic Corridor (AEC) Chambers Group, which represents Chambers of Commerce along the entire western seaboard, has welcomed the announcement that the European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved the largest ever EIB support for urban investment in Ireland to Limerick County Council. The Atlantic Economic Corridor is an initiative of the Chambers of Commerce of Limerick, Shannon, Ennis, Galway, Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo, and the American Chamber of Commerce.

Representing 73,500 employees and 2,250 businesses along the west coast of Ireland, the group seeks to create a “city of scale” from Limerick, through Galway to Sligo to match Dublin and Cork in developing infrastructure, attracting domestic and international investment and growing employment and wealth in vibrant western communities.

CHAMBER COMMENT “Ensuring that Ireland’s unique circumstances will continue to be recognised as part of the ongoing Brexit negotiations is a remarkable achievement by the Government.”

Chambers Ireland Chief Executive Ian Talbot welcoming the Brexit guarantee of ‘no hard border’ between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

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CHAMBERS NEWS

CHAMBER COMMENT “Apart from making up our infrastructure deficit, the topics of most concern to business are the high cost of living, together with the shortage of supply and rising cost of housing.”

Chambers Ireland Chief Executive Ian Talbot speaking ahead of an address to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation, where he highlighted the concerns of businesses across the country.

MCCOY PROVES A CHRISTMAS CRACKER AT CHAMBER LUNCH

Eamonn Sinnott, General Manager, Intel in Ireland with Allan Shine, CEO, County Kildare Chamber

INTEL CHIEF WINS KILDARE AWARD

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amonn Sinnott, General Manager of Intel in Ireland, was this year’s recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Business Award at the County Kildare Chamber Awards. Sinnott received the award to a standing ovation and in his acceptance speech outlined the huge contribution Intel has made in Kildare since it opened in 1989. Intel Ireland employs 4,900 people directly and contributes 9921 million annually to the Irish economy. Speaking at the ceremony in November, Allan Shine, CEO, County Kildare Chamber, said: “The contribution Intel has made to the economy here in Kildare is unprecedented and Eamonn as the General manager is a very worthy recipient of this award.”

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Pharmaceutical boss Chanelle McCoy entertained the great and good of Irish business at the Dublin Chamber Christmas Lunch in the Clayton Burlington Hotel on the afternoon of December 7th. McCoy told the packed audience about how she has grown the massive human health division of the Chanelle Group, which in 17 years has become Ireland’s largest indigenous pharmaceutical manufacturer. Pictured at the lunch were Mary Rose Burke, CEO, Dublin Chamber, Chanelle McCoy, Co-Founder and Director at Chanelle Medical, Anne O’Leary, Chief Executive, Vodafone Ireland and Brendan Foster, President of Dublin Chamber.

SHANNON CHAMBER EXPANDS OPERATIONS

Shannon Chamber CEO Helen Downes and President Julie Dickerson (front row) join Ray O’Driscoll, Managing Director, Shannon Properties, Shannon Group plc, Matthew Thomas, CEO, Shannon Group plc and members of Shannon Chamber board at the Chamber’s new offices in Shannon Airport House

In the 21 years since it first opened its doors, Shannon Chamber has become an intrinsic part of the business community in the greater Shannon area and has expanded both its membership base and its staff complement.

To cater for the needs of this growing membership and to give its staff of six greater space in which to work, the Chamber has opened a second office in the newly refurbished Shannon Airport House at Shannon Free Zone. Its former head office in SkyCourt will remain open and be used more extensively by Shannon Chamber Skillnet to provide a range of training programmes to member companies.

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CHAMBERS NEWS

CHAMBER CAPTION Cork Chamber honoured Voxpro founders Linda and Dan Kiely with the ‘Outstanding Achievement in Business Award’ at Cork Chamber’s Dublin Dinner 2017. Pictured with Mr and Mrs Kiely are John Higgins, Partner with event sponsors EY, Bill O’Connell, President of Cork Chamber and Conor Healy, CEO of Cork Chamber.

The team involved in the Mullingar award win

ENTERPRISING WIN FOR MULLINGAR

An initiative involving Mullingar Chamber helped Mullingar to a regional category win at the recent Bank of Ireland Enterprising Town Awards.

The Enterprising Town programme promotes partnership between local business groups, chambers of commerce, local government and community groups to plan and deliver a range of activities that supports and generates business in the area. Commenting on the win, Mullingar Chamber President Tom Hyland said: “This is a fantastic accolade for the town and municipal area and illustrates what can be achieved when business and community collaborate.”

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WEXFORD STYLE FASHION SHOW RIVALS INTERNATIONAL CATWALK EVENTS Wexford Chamber, together with over 600 fashionistas, welcomed style entrepreneur Darren Kennedy to host the 6th Wexford Style Fashion Show on Saturday November 11th 2017. The charity catwalk event showcased the very best of autumn/winter collections as stocked by Irish designers Aideen Bodkin and Synan O’Mahony and 17 of Co Wexford’s high-end boutiques. The annual event continues to recognise the retail trade in Wexford and the sizeable contribution it makes to the local economy.

CHAMBER COMMENT “The Bill includes onerous requirements on business, many of which by their nature require a degree of flexibility on the part of both employers and employees.”

Chambers Ireland Chief Executive Ian Talbot expressing concern that the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017 on Zero Hours Contracts is burdensome and unnecessary.

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20/12/2017 20/12/2017 15:36 21/11/2017 16:41 13:37

CHAMBER CEO Q&A MADELEINE QUIRKE

A Model Chamber

InBUSINESS caught up with Madeleine Quirke, CEO of Wexford Chamber, to hear about the opportunities and challenges facing businesses in the south-east.

Q: You have been head of Wexford Chamber for almost a decade now. How is Chamber life?

A: Yes, I started off as president whilst working for Irish Ferries back in 2007 and it is hard to believe that we are now almost at the end of 2017.

A lot has changed and with the introduction of new technology, I believe that businesses are in a very different place in terms of networking and developing strong engagement across a wide range of stakeholders. A fabulous new Chamber headquarters right in the heart of the Wexford business district allows us to offer a wide range of services to our members.

Q: What are the burning issues currently facing businesses in Wexford?

A: The uncertainty of Brexit is a challenge but from a Wexford

Chamber perspective we recognise that this highly publicised ‘divorce’ could actually deliver significant opportunities for businesses in the model county. With Rosslare Europort on our doorstep we hope to see a significant increase in both inbound and outbound traffic at the port.

In a county that has such a strong tourism product, it is imperative that we maintain the 9 per cent VAT rate in order to give a degree of certainty to businesses operating in the tourism and hospitality sector.

Q: For any business considering locating in Wexford, what would you say the county has to offer?

A: Working in close collaboration with Wexford County Council, the delivery of large-scale commercial property solutions across the county will greatly help to attract new investments and new jobs to Wexford. The completion of the M11 Enniscorthy and N25 New Ross bypasses in early 2019 will greatly improve access to the county and create significant business opportunities. There is great confidence in the

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south-east and I believe it is incumbent on all of us to ensure the experience of investing in Wexford matches the expectations of those businesses that choose Wexford as a place to live, work and do business.

Q: In terms of leading the Chamber, where do you draw your inspiration from?

A: My role is to represent the members of Wexford Chamber on issues that impact on the current and future economic proposition of our county.

The spirit of co-operation that exists between us and other business support agencies is helping to drive the development of the local economy.

Madeleine Quirke, CEO, Wexford Chamber

A: To listen is such an important aspect of my role within the Chamber.

Often problems are talked out if there is a good listener on hand.

an attractive location for businesses that wish to set up operations outside of Dublin. The plans to develop Trinity Wharf on the Wexford Quay front will be finalised and progressed in 2018 and there is no doubt that this alone will attract new investment and jobs to Wexford.

Q: Are there any up-and-

Q: What will be the key

coming Wexford-based companies to watch out for in the near future?

objectives of the Chamber in 2018?

Q: What is the most valuable advice you’ve been given?

A: Wexford as a business community should be closely watched as we are now ideally positioned as

A: To continue to build on our reputation as an integral component of a thriving business community in Wexford Town.

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CHAMBER FEATURE BRUSSELS VISIT

Engaging with

Europe In November, Chambers Ireland led a delegation to Brussels aimed at highlighting the need for the European Commission to proactively engage with business.

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n November 7th and 8th, a delegation from the Irish Chamber Network, led

by Chambers Ireland, met with key officials from across the European Commission to discuss matters of importance to the Irish business community.

The Chambers represented included Cork Chamber, Dublin Chamber, Dundalk Chamber, Fingal Dublin Chamber, Galway Chamber, Meath Chambers, South Dublin Chamber, Sligo Chamber and Waterford Chamber.

OBJECTIVES The objective of the trip was to highlight the need for the European Commission to proactively engage with the business community, particularly SMEs, on issues like trade, innovation and skills.

When the UK exits the European Union in 2019, it will become even more important for the voice of Irish business to be heard in Brussels.

While Brexit may be dominating headlines in Ireland, it is dramatically less newsworthy on the continent.

The EU is facing many challenges,

including skills gap, ongoing difficulties with access to finance, promoting trade, reforming taxation and improving security. The Irish business community must be to the fore in promoting its position and its interests to EU leaders. Although Chambers Ireland is strongly of the view that Ireland’s economic future can only be secured if it remains at the heart of a strong Europe, it also believes that the EU must evolve and adapt in these changing times and recognise the unique difficulties which will arise for Irish businesses.

Even with the highest rates of growth in the EU, Ireland is a small open economy and we are considerably exposed to external forces and the uncertainty stemming from Brexit. Therefore, it is imperative that the European Commission continues to support growth, job creation and innovation.

DAY 1 As part of the first day’s itinerary, the Irish Chamber Network met with the Irish Ambassador to the European Union and representatives from DG Trade, DG Connect and the Taskforce 50 Brexit negotiation team. The objective of the first day of meetings

The Irish business community must be to the fore in promoting its position and its interests to EU leaders.”

The Chamber Network delegation pictured at the European Parliament

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CHAMBER FEATURE BRUSSELS VISIT

The Chamber Network delegation

was to give Chamber delegates the opportunity to speak about the impact of Brexit on their region and on their members. Furthermore, it also gave Chamber delegates the opportunity to engage with high ranking officials from the European Commission to hear more about the work of DG Connect and DG Trade.

DAY 2 The second day began at the European Parliament, at a roundtable breakfast hosted by Sean Kelly MEP and his team.

Also in attendance were MEPs

The preference of the Irish business community is that the UK stays within the EEA and Customs Union, however, if that is not to be the case, workable and realistic transitional arrangements will be required and will need to be agreed before the March 2019 deadline.”

Matt Carthy, Deirdre Clune, Brian Hayes, Marian Harkin and Mairead McGuinness. As part of the breakfast meeting, MEPs briefed the delegation on their current policy briefs and the work of their committees. Following on from these meetings, the Chambers Ireland delegation met with the Enterprise Ireland Benelux team to talk trade, internationalisation and how Irish SMEs can grow their business. Rounding off the day, the Irish Chambers met with their counterparts from Chambers around Europe to discuss our business priorities, concerns about Brexit and the possibility of closer collaboration in the future.

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PRIORITIES As we look ahead to 2018, while we may not know the direction of the Brexit negotiations, we do know that they will continue and that the coming 12 months will be crucial.

The preference of the Irish business community is that the UK stays within the EEA and Customs Union, however, if that is not to be the case, workable and realistic transitional arrangements will be required and will need to be agreed before the March 2019 deadline.

Beyond Brexit, Chambers Ireland and the Irish Chamber Network will be working to promote the benefits of trade to Irish businesses and advocate to the European Commission the need for SMEfriendly trade deals. Promoting the opportunities available to Ireland through the digital economy and the Digital Single Market will also be central to the objective of building resilience in the Irish economy and finding opportunities to grow our companies.

NORTHERN COASTAL ALLIANCE

Following an announcement on December 8th that sufficient progress had been made in the first phase of talks on Brexit, an alliance of Northern European Coastal Chambers urged British and EU negotiators to create clarity on a future trade-friendly relationship as soon as possible.

The alliance, which accounts for 70 per cent of EU-UK trade, comprises the Federation of Belgian Chambers of Commerce, Brussels Chamber of Commerce, the British Chambers of Commerce, Chambers Ireland, the Danish Chamber of Commerce, the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Netherlands-British Chamber of Commerce. Together the group issued a joint statement to the British and EU Brexit negotiators urging them to make rapid progress in agreeing a trade-friendly future relationship in the New Year.

Commenting on the alliance, Chambers Ireland Chief Executive Ian Talbot said: “We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with our counterparts, all of whom represent businesses facing similar challenges in trade and supply chains as the Irish business community.”

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CHAMBER FEATURE BREXIT

The Business of

BREXIT

Emma Kerins, International Affairs Executive at Chambers Ireland, examines the latest political developments on Brexit and the steps businesses can take to prepare for best and worst-case outcomes.

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s we approach the final meeting of the EU Council before the end of 2017, the politics of the ongoing Brexit negotiations shifted up a gear in recent weeks. The question of the Irish border is one of three issues that require “sufficient progress” in reaching a resolution before the EU begins to discuss the future trading relationship with the UK. On November 9th, an internal European Commission document was leaked, which suggested that the only way to avoid a hard border between the EU and Northern Ireland would be if Northern Ireland remained within the EU Customs Union and Single Market. The paper made explicit mention of an ‘all-island’ approach

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to navigating the issue of the border between Ireland and the UK following the UK’s exit from the EU. The contents of the leaked paper were not well received in the UK, whose own position is that the UK, in its entirety, will be leaving the EU in 2019.

The weeks that followed the leak were amongst the most tense since formal negotiations began, culminating in an announcement on December 8th that the UK had agreed with the EU that there would be “no hard border” between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The agreement coincided with an announcement from president Juncker and Prime Minister Theresa May that “sufficient” progress had been made and that both parties were now ready to move on to the next phase of talks.

Since then, on December 15th, the EU Council ratified the agreements, paving the way for the EU to move to the next stage of negotiations.

EUROCHAMBRES ECONOMIC SURVEY FOR 2018 Meanwhile, Chambers Ireland, in conjunction with its colleagues in Eurochambres, published a survey of European businesses, the results of which revealed that Brexit is not considered a concern for most companies in the EU. The survey, which was conducted in autumn 2017 and published on November 8th, asked over 50,000 businesses from 23 countries across Europe to rank the main challenges they believed they would face in 2018.

While Irish firms identified the impact of Brexit as the biggest challenge to the development of their business, just fewer than 10 per cent (9.2 per cent) of European businesses registered Brexit as a challenge at all.

Commenting on the results, Ian Talbot, Chief Executive of Chambers Ireland and Deputy President of Eurochambres said: “This survey confirms that Irish businesses are feeling significantly more exposed to the impact of Brexit than businesses in the rest of Europe. While it is not surprising that Brexit is a priority for Irish business given our proximity to the UK and the importance of our trading relationship, it is alarming that businesses across Europe are not more concerned by the potential impact of the loss of the EU’s second biggest market.”

For the consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU not to be identified as one of the primary concerns of business as we approach 2018 is concerning, particularly as both the EU and UK hope to begin negotiations on the future trading relationship in early 2018.

PREPARING FOR BREXIT WHAT CAN BUSINESS DO? From a business perspective, it appears that the closer we get to the March 2019 exit deadline, the less certain it becomes as to what kind of environment companies will be navigating after the UK leaves the EU. This is damaging business confidence and making it harder for companies to

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CHAMBER FEATURE BREXIT

Carol Lynch, partner in BDO

plan for their budgets and investments.

Will there be a transitional arrangement in place following March 2019? If not, will businesses be dealing with the “cliff edge” scenario of WTO tariffs and customs checks?

Speaking to Chambers Ireland, Carol Lynch, partner in BDO and the Chambers Ireland representative on Revenue’s Customs Consultative Committee, said that as Brexit negotiations progress, there is increasing pressure for both the EU and the UK to agree the specifics of a transition period following on from 2019.

“Business will need a year to make preparations and introduce new customs procedures and the customs authorities will need a significant

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increase in the number of customs officials both in the UK, Ireland and the EU,” she said. “These are unlikely to be recruited and trained in time for March 2019. Further IT systems will need significant investment to cope with the potential ten-fold increase in the number of declarations required.

The fact that there is still no concrete solution to the Northern Irish border and how this will be managed postBrexit is concerning. This leaves companies unclear as to whether to prepare for a worst-case scenario of a hard Brexit in March 2019 or whether to adapt a wait-and-see approach. The downside to the latter however is that as the months go by it leaves less and less time for the necessary work to be completed.”

However, there are some steps businesses can take in the interim, where we the business community must plan for the possibility for a hard Brexit, even though all sides are still hoping for a soft one. Lynch suggests that the following steps should be taken by companies that are involved in trading with The UK: 1) Review your supply chain and map out imports and exports to and from the UK 2) Assess the impact of tariffs on a worst-case and best-case scenario 3) Identify the level of customs awareness within the company 4) Assess the potential increase in the costs of customs compliance 5) Look at applying for trusted trader status.

If your business is seeking more information on the Brexit negotiations or how you might begin to prepare for a new trading relationship with the UK, please contact Chambers Ireland.

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CHAMBER FEATURE GENDER PAY GAP

gap

Bridging the

In order to tackle the issue of gender pay gap in Ireland, we must carefully examine and understand the factors that are contributing to men earning more than women.

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ccording to the Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum at the beginning of November 2017, Ireland currently ranks eighth in the world from a country sample of 144 countries globally, with Iceland ranked in first place. While eighth place is a notable global ranking, Ireland has slipped two places since the World Economic Forum’s report for 2016.

To begin to make progress on closing the gender pay gap, we must first of all consider how this term itself is defined and what data is used to measure it.

According to one paper published by the Department of Justice and Equality, a gender pay gap can be defined as the difference between men’s and women’s pay, based on the average difference in gross hourly earnings of all employees.

The same paper also notes that different organisations use different metrics to measure the gender pay gap and herein lies the difficulty.

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For example, the OECD defines the gender wage gap as the difference between the median earnings of men and women, as opposed to the average earnings, which is used by the EU. Furthermore, Eurostat uses an unadjusted pay gap figure and reports that the gender pay gap in Ireland was 13.9 per cent in 2014 compared with the EU28 figure of 16.7 per cent.

The problem with using a definition that focuses on an unadjusted pay gap figure is that this figure does not explain why gaps exist, and can often distort and oversimplify the reasons for gender pay gaps as being related to rates of pay, rather than several complex factors around how salaries are calculated over the lifetime of an employee, such as whether workers work fewer hours or take career breaks.

However, what can be taken from these different reports is that across various criteria and recommended methods of data collection for gender pay gap inequality reports, men are consistently being paid

There is much more that can be done to narrow the pay gap through providing support to women who are typically managing caring responsibilities in addition to their professional priorities.”

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CHAMBER FEATURE GENDER PAY GAP

more than women. For example, if you look at the Eurostat report findings, the gap is narrowest when wages are compared as an hourly rate rather than monthly or annual.

It is noteworthy that the gap is also narrower for those under 40 years of age and is much wider for those over 40. Furthermore, in the World Economic Forum’s report, it is striking that while Ireland is ranked in first place for gender parity in educational attainment, we are ranked in 47th place in economic participation and opportunity. This indicates that some significant factors contributing to the gender pay gap exist within the professional sphere.

In order to tackle this we must also carefully examine and understand the factors that are contributing to men earning more than women.

In October 2016, the Low Pay Commission released a study which considered “the preponderance of women on the national minimum wage”. The review highlighted that of all persons surveyed, “over

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hambers Ireland continues to take the view that C investment in childcare not only benefits the state by reducing the social welfare bill, but also supports the labour market.” half of women who are working part-time are doing so because of caring responsibilities or due to other personal or family reasons. In contrast, the main reasons cited by men as to why they are working parttime are that they are in education or training or that they have been unable to find full-time employment, which together represent two-thirds of all male part-time workers.”

This suggests that the pay gap issue isn’t solely due to gender and is in fact connected to caring responsibilities and the manner in which society and statutory leave rights are structured, where caring responsibilities weigh more heavily on women than they do on men. Although the rate of labour market participation is equal at 85 per cent among men and women without children, female labour market participation falls to 59 per cent for women with a child under three and 40 per cent for women with two or more children. The consequences of women’s default role as care-givers frequently results in a gender pay gap, gender pension gap, interrupted career trajectories (which is one of the reasons a pay gap and pension gap exists to begin with), absence from positions associated with power and decision-making, and underrepresentation of female directors on company boards.

Looking at this area of Irish society, there is much more that can be done to narrow the pay gap through providing support to women who are typically managing caring

responsibilities in addition to their professional priorities. In a report published by Chambers Ireland in 2015, ‘Investing for Tomorrow Supporting the Economy through Affordable Childcare’, a lack of affordability, lack of accessibility, lack of educational focus and low levels of investment were the major problems identified in the current model for childcare provision in Ireland.

Chambers Ireland continues to take the view that investment in childcare not only benefits the state by reducing the social welfare bill, but also supports the labour market by enabling greater female labour market participation and enhances equality of opportunity between men and women. However, investing in childcare is only one part of a much broader set of solutions required to significantly narrow the gender pay and pension gap.

International studies show that by increasing access to paternity leave (as opposed to just maternity leave), gaps in pay and pension provision will be reduced in the long-term.

Chambers Ireland takes the view that policy reform and social change requires long-term structural reforms to support the professional and societal evolution that will narrow the pay gap. This will require further investment in childcare, resourcing the commitments made in the National Women’s Strategy, committing to pension reform and introducing greater parenting equality through an examination of current parental leave provisions.

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CHAMBER FEATURE BUDGET 2018

Reflections on

BUDGET 2018

Budget 2018 offered something small for everyone, but not enough for Ireland’s entrepreneurs and small businesses, writes Elisha Collier O’Brien.

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n October 10th 2017, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe delivered the Budget 2018 package, which set out the Government’s spending expenditure plans for 2018 and beyond. Following the publication of our own pre-budget submission, which outlined the key policies that Irish business was seeking, Chambers Ireland watched Minister Donohoe deliver the Budget with great anticipation.

In our pre-budget submission, we recommended that Government focus on three key areas based on engagement with our network of local chambers across the country.

We asked that Government focus on significantly increasing investment in infrastructure, on policies that enable small businesses to grow and thrive, and to assess the competitiveness of our tax regime over the medium to long-term, taking into account our investment needs along with the competitive global context in which Ireland is operating. Under each of these three policy areas, we outlined policy proposals for Government to consider for inclusion in Budget 2018.

small for everyone. We were largely disappointed by the lack of entrepreneurial focus in Budget 2018.

This was a missed opportunity to support and encourage Ireland’s small businesses, start-ups and scale-ups.

The slow pace of delivery on tax equity for the self-employed has been frustrating and there remains a discrepancy of 500 between the PAYE Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. We need Government to show that it values the entrepreneurs and risk-takers that help drive Ireland’s economy forward and such an inequity in tax does the opposite. In addition to this, there was no change in the CGT regime, which was a missed opportunity to further enhance Ireland’s competitiveness in advance of the UK’s exit from the European Union.

We were, however, pleased to see that many of our recommendations were included in the final budget package, in particular recommendations on increasing the level of capital expenditure in order to fund more infrastructure, to introduce an employee share ownership scheme and to continue increasing investment in childcare. Budget 2018 saw 1.2bn of

new spending announced, split on a 2:1 basis in favour of spending.

The Key Employee Engagement Programme will enable SMEs to offer employees share options with advantageous tax treatment, which is to be welcomed. In addition, the Brexit Loan Scheme for SMEs of up to 300m to assist with short-term working capital should serve to help SMEs through the potential challenges in trade that lie ahead. We were also encouraged by the acknowledgement that we must maintain a broad tax base, and while there were cuts made to the USC rates, the entry level to this tax was maintained, ensuring more people remain within the tax net going forward.

We are encouraged by the fact that a large number of the policies we advocated for and lobbied Government on were included in this budget, but there is much left to be delivered upon for Ireland’s entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Reflecting on what was included in the Budget 2018 package, overall Chambers Ireland believes that this budget sought to deliver something for everything, albeit something

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CHAMBER PARTNER PROFILE WATERFORD CRYSTAL

gift

The Perfect The House of Waterford Crystal has the largest collection of Waterford Crystal products in the world to provide the ideal gift for someone special.

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t this time of the year, individuals and companies are considering the ideal gifts for family, friends and customers within their business. The House of Waterford Crystal has the largest collection of Waterford Crystal products in the world and can provide the perfect gift this season At its factory and brand experience in Waterford, it has collections to suit any occasion, any customer and some that work great as employee awards. Here’s a glance at some of the options available.

LISMORE CONNOISSEUR A range of barware crafted to properly appreciate a good whiskey.

The collection includes both tumblers and decanters, each crafted with intricate cut crystal designs and created with a different whiskey lover in mind. The Lismore Connoisseur collection gives a nod to the rising popularity of whiskey today, and the explosion of whiskey offerings on bar and restaurant menus over recent years are testament to this.

Waterford’s Lismore Connoisseur collection is here to help embrace it.

THE PERFECT GIFT ASSORTMENT Waterford has a wide choice of products that are ideal gifts to say thank you to a friend or customer, but the beauty of Giftology lies in its ease and convenience. Giftology’s signature cylindrical tubes, in eyepopping colours with gold accents and the prominent Waterford logo, all add up to an elegant gift with luxury cachet, ready for immediate presentation. The collection includes

This Season

The Lismore Connoisseur collection

a clock, vase, butterfly, shot glasses, tumblers, votive and many other timeless pieces. It’s the ideal gift for any occasion, available from 45.

PERSONALISE THAT GIFT There is nothing better than receiving a gift of Waterford that has your name, the occasion or company logo etched onto the crystal. At Waterford, they take pride in providing that individual touch.

AT YOUR SERVICE Why not take advantage of Waterford’s gift card, wrapping and global shipping service (local and international 1-2 days)?

Many clients enjoy the service Tom Walsh and his team at Waterford can provide to corporate clients and consumers.

For more details contact Tom: M: +353 (0)87 1209143 E: tom.walsh@fiskars.com W: www.waterfordvisitorcentre.com

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CHAMBER PARTNER PROFILE AIB

Banking on

Women

The AIB Women in Enterprise Programme is helping female entrepreneurs to lead themselves, lead their business and lead their future.

A

IB is fully committed to being a bank for women in business, a bank where existing and future female entrepreneurs feel they can and want to do business. AIB have launched two major initiatives to specifically support existing and future female business owners to succeed – Women in Enterprise and Women in Enterprise Finance Supports.

Using in-depth research carried out by AIB, these initiatives are designed to empower, educate, mentor and bring together ambitious, entrepreneurial businesswomen to

create a network, equipping them with the necessary supports and tools required to sustain and grow their business, as well as assisting them in securing finance.

Women in Enterprise is an accelerator business programme for ambitious, female entrepreneurs, comprising a series of masterclasses and a growth academy. It is directed at women who lead or own a business and have growth ambitions for it.

Entrepreneurial experts, The Entrepreneurs Academy is facilitating the masterclasses and growth academies on AIB’s behalf.

The Entrepreneurs Academy has a proven track record of designing and delivering impactful leadership learning programmes. It is an invaluable partner to deliver training to those who have ambitions to grow their business.

in Business

Focusing on the educational and mentoring needs of female business owners, an issue women identified very strongly within AIB’s own primary research, Women in Enterprise will provide ambitious female entrepreneurs with coaching support in leadership and business growth in order to identify commercial opportunities that exist, so that they can be as prepared as possible to take advantage of these opportunities.

“These masterclasses and growth academies have been developed with the specific purpose of assisting women to grow their businesses intentionally to the next growth level, in an interactive, peer group environment,” says Catherine Moroney, Head of AIB Business Banking.

The first part will involve the rollout of four AIB Women in Enterprise masterclasses. These will take place around the country and cater for almost 300 businesswomen. Each masterclass will consist of one-off half-day sessions covering modules on leadership, sales and marketing and essential principles to help accelerate the businesses’ growth potential.

The masterclass serves as a potential introduction to the AIB Women in Enterprise Growth Academy if a business owner is considering committing to this.

The second part is the Women in Enterprise Growth Academy. This involves six full days of learning over a five-month period. The modules on this intensive programme will focus on areas such as leading yourself, leading others, leading growth via innovation, planning and key performance

Joanne Hession, CEO of the Entrepreneurs Academy and Lorraine Greene, AIB’s Programme Manager for Women in Enterprise alongside Jennifer Slattery, Keelin O’Keeffe, Edel McGuinness and Melissa Curley, participants in the AIB Women in Enterprise Programme

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CHAMBER PARTNER PROFILE AIB Melissa Curley, Social Bee

WHAT THEY SAY

We hear from four ambitious female entrepreneurs who are participating in AIB Women in Enterprise.

Keelin O’Keeffe, Kiki Moon

Jennifer Slattery, Jennifer Slattery Textiles

indicators as well as sales, marketing and distribution, and finally the various elements of financial planning.

This programme is available to 40 businesswomen and the first academy commences in February 2018, which is subject to a competitive application and selection process.

We know that in Ireland far more men (55 per cent of all men) than women (35 per cent of all women) believe they have the skills and knowledge to start a business. We are confident that AIB’s Women in Enterprise Masterclasses and Growth Academies will address female business owners’ specific needs and therefore help to close the gap.

AIB is fully committed to supporting current and prospective businesswomen with financial support wherever feasible. That’s why we have launched a 100 million Women in Enterprise loan fund. This is available in the same way as our other loan facilities, through all of our channels with the same terms and conditions. What differentiates it is

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EDEL MCGUINNESS, EMG PROPERTY CONSULTANTS “As a business owner it is so easy to get caught up in managing a business rather than really thinking strategically and leading the business to reach its potential. This AIB Women in Enterprise masterclass is the perfect opportunity for me to take the time I need to put myself and my business on a stronger path and in turn lead it to new heights.”

Edel McGuinness, EMG Property Consultants

that we will measure the level of uptake of these facilities.

As part of the Frontline Ventures II 60m Equity Fund, AIB launched a 3m discovery programme that supports tech entrepreneurs. The fund focuses on software businesses and we are seeking to invest this equity in around 15 companies up to approximately 200,000 each.

Frontline are holding a series of clinics in AIB locations exclusively for female business entrepreneurs to encourage and assist them to assess their equity readiness.

We feel passionate in AIB about supporting and strengthening the ever-increasing number of women who are ambitious for success in owning their own businesses.

Masterclasses are taking place: Cork, 31st January 2018 Donegal, 8th February 2018

KEELIN O’KEEFFE, KIKI MOON “Leadership and strategic development in small businesses is so often overlooked when you’re busy managing the day-to-day running of a business. Yet, to scale and grow, these two elements are critical. I love being a part of the AIB Women in Enterprise masterclass; it is the perfect opportunity to equip myself with the skills I need to take my business to the next level.”

MELISSA CURLEY, SOCIAL BEE “I have achieved a lot with my business through hard work and commitment but I know I need to up my level, my thinking and my skills to really have the impact on the business and deliver the life that I know my business can bring me. The AIB Women in Enterprise masterclass is a great opportunity to kickstart that before the year ends. I am really excited to be attending it.”

JENNIFER SLATTERY, JENNIFER SLATTERY TEXTILES “Attending the AIB Women in Enterprise masterclass is a great opportunity for me to step out of my business for the day and really focus on how I will lead it to new heights.

I know it has so much more potential and I really want to equip myself to take it where I know it can go.”

For more information see business.aib. ie/my-business-is/women-in-enterprise

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CHAMBER PARTNER PROFILE EMBASSY OF BRAZIL

APP

The Ethical

Credit: Divulgação

Meet the Brazilian ag-tech start-up tackling global hunger.

The BovControl smartphone app was founded in 2013 by Danilo Leão

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A

s the farming industry and its companies grow ever larger, smart technology is playing an increasing role in managing food production from farms to supermarkets. A Brazilianborn company, recently elected one of the Forbes 25 Most Innovative Ag-Tech Start-ups, wants to create a smarter beef supply chain – and with such rapid growth, there’s every chance that it might do just this.

Founded in 2013 by Danilo

Leão, smartphone app BovControl enables producers, corporations and consumers to identify ethically produced meat and milk. Farmers enter data about their production into the BovControl app, which then integrates the results with devices already available in the market, such as ear tags, RFID chips, weight scales, sensors and other pieces of hardware.

It generates detailed reports with many variables, including weight gain and milk production, which can allow farmers to identify health issues with their herd.

This means the app is able to offer more than what the bulk of its competitors offer, which is mostly herd management. BovControl helps beef and dairy producers make smarter choices and increase productivity, and also functions as a traceability tool.

The new professional plan boosts farmers’ efficiency by providing tools to manage their rural property as well as their cattle. This is achieved through livestock inventories, tracking nutritional and sanitary control, the animal’s origin and movement through the supply chain, and overall tasks and finance.

However, the app is not solely focused on farmers. BovControl developed the app in tandem with non-governmental organisation Aliança da Terra, in order to provide producers with a certificate to declare that they are producing ethically.

With this, farms and producers are rewarded for their ethics and larger corporations can be sure that they are buying an ethical, efficient product from these sellers.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 14:41

CHAMBER PARTNER PROFILE EMBASSY OF BRAZIL

After just four years in operation, BovControl is used daily by over 30,000 farms globally with a weekly user growth of over 5 per cent

CONNECTING COWS TO THE CLOUD The app is gaining significant traction. After just four years in operation, it is used daily by over 30,000 farms in every continent (except Antarctica) with a weekly user growth of over 5 per cent. It’s gaining credibility and large clients too. In Brazil it is being used by a wide range of producers, from small-scale ones to Brazilian supermarket giants like Pão de Açúcar. But, according to Marcelo Murachovsky, UX Designer, the app offers something different in that it is driven by the ambitious goal of reducing hunger in the world; empowering farmers with technology to maximise their beef, milk and genetics production.

“With everything that we do, our ultimate goal is to contribute to reducing hunger in the world,” he says.

For Murachovsky, working directly on every stage of the supply chain is fundamental to this mission. “We are here to help everyone produce better, more effectively, and at the other end of the corporations, help consumers buy better and buy right.”

For Murachovsky, it’s important that BovControl remains a global

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business, as it began, and that it maintains its presence at all stages of the supply chain. He believes BovControl can’t only be exclusive to small farmers or medium producers if it’s to bring about an effective change. “At the end of the day, we want to bring to all the small and medium producers, and also to big corporations and all intermediaries, a platform that will facilitate the purchase, sale and regulation of livestock all over the world,” he says.

BovControl has offices in Boston, MA, San Francisco, CA, São Paulo, and a farm lab in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. BovControl could see its success continue for some time yet, as it aims to expand further into North American and European markets. Demand for the app’s services certainly isn’t slowing down, and with BovControl’s focus on ethics, sustainability and efficiency, the start-up is certainly one Brazilian business to watch over the next few years.

With everything that we do, our ultimate goal is to contribute to reducing hunger in the world. We are here to help everyone produce better, more effectively, and at the other end of the corporations, help consumers buy better and buy right.”

For this and other articles on Brazil’s innovative, sustainable, creative and diverse industries please visit www.bebrasil.com.br/en/home.

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We are Ervia. We are guardians of Ireland’s national gas, water and wastewater assets.

Each day we deliver vital infrastructure and services to 1.7 million customers across the length and breadth of Ireland, in partnership with Local Authorities and our service providers.

We enhance the health and quality of life of the people of Ireland, protect our environment and enable economic development by delivering safe and reliable gas, water and wastewater infrastructure and services nationwide. www.ervia.ie

FC advert template.indd 1 Chambers1_DPS_JM_Chambers.indd 2

20/12/2017 19/12/2017 16:49 10:33

Cham

1.7m

1,645

customers

employees

â‚Ź1.4bn

â‚Ź584m

revenue

9

th

largest company in Ireland by EBITDA

95,000 km of water and wastewater network

1.7bn litres of water processed daily

capital expenditure over

7,000

water and wastewater assets

13,954 km of gas pipelines

24/7

emergency response services for gas and water infrastructure

Source: Ervia Annual Report and Financial Statements 2016 & Irish Water Business Plan 2017-2022

10:33

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20/12/2017 19/12/2017 16:49 10:33

LOCALS LEADING THE LINE Monaghan County Council scooped the top accolade at the 2017 Excellence in Local Government Awards.

Monaghan County Council was named Local Authority of the Year at the Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards, which took place on November 23rd 2017. The 14th annual awards ceremony was held in association with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (DHPLG) and showcases and celebrates the best of local government in Ireland.

Commenting on the awards, Ian Talbot, Chief Executive, Chambers Ireland said: “The Excellence in Local Government Awards demonstrate how each year local authorities work consistently to deliver services and initiatives that sustain, enhance and support our communities and local economies.

Chambers Ireland is honoured to host these awards and recognise the dedication and hard work that takes place at local government level across Ireland.

I want to congratulate Monaghan County Council, the 16 category winners, the many shortlisted organisations but also, just as importantly, the people who made all these projects and activities happen.”

THE WINNERS Supporting Active Communities Award sponsored by Lidl Cork County Council – Dunmanway Community Garden – By the Community, for the Community, in the Heart of the Community Best Practice in Citizen Engagement Award sponsored by ESB Networks South Dublin County Council – €300K – Have Your Say! Health & Wellbeing Award sponsored by Healthy Ireland Mayo County Council – Men on the Move

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Festival of the Year Award sponsored by Fáilte Ireland Donegal County Council – Sea Sessions Surf and Music Festival Outstanding Customer Service Award sponsored by SIRO Limerick City & County Council – Limerick.ie

Promoting Economic Development Award sponsored by AIB Limerick City & County Council – Regeneration Programme: Model of pathways to employment in the hospitality and catering industry

Enhancing the Urban Environment Award sponsored by Vodafone Offaly County Council – Revitalising Birr by improving the way its public realm functions

Sustainable Environment Award sponsored by ERP Kerry County Council – MacGillycuddy Reeks Habitat and Trail Repair Project – a Collaborative Rural Economic Development Zone (REDZ) initiative

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Joint Local Authority Initiative Award sponsored by EirGrid Monaghan County Council – Cavan and Monaghan Science Festival

Supporting Tourism Award sponsored by Fáilte Ireland Waterford City & County Council – Waterford Greenway

Local Authority Innovation Award sponsored by LGiU Ireland Cork City Council – Competitive Dialogue Housing Delivery Process

Monaghan County Council won this year’s Local Authority of the Year Award

Sustaining the Arts Award sponsored by Zurich Longford County Council – www.virtualwriter.ie

Best Library Service Award sponsored by Waterford Crystal Kildare County Council – Support to Secondary Schools Programme

Heritage and Built Environment Award sponsored by Ervia Cork County Council – Spike Island, Cork Harbour Disability Services Provision Award sponsored by Shell E&P Ireland Cork City Council – Hollyhill Library Services for Children with Autism Commemorations and Centenaries Award sponsored by An Post Cavan County Council – Cavan County Museum’s Commemoration Education Programme

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 15:59

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AWARDS 2017

SUPPORTING BEST PRACTICE ACTIVE IN CITIZEN COMMUNITIES ENGAGEMENT: CORK COUNTY WATERFORD COUNCIL COUNTY COUNCIL Mayor Declan Hurley, Kirstie Smith, Tim Lucey, Charlie Horgan and Gary Murray of Lidl, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

BEST PRACTICE IN CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT AWARD SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Cllr Pamela Kearns, Elaine Leech and Seán Murphy of ESB (the award sponsor), Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

HEALTH & BEST PRACTICE WELLBEING IN CITIZEN AWARD MAYO COUNTY ENGAGEMENT: COUNCIL WATERFORD COUNTY COUNCIL Cathaoirleach Richard Finn, Peter Hynes, Charlie Lambert, Martina Hughes, Greg Straton, Healthy Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

SUPPORTING TOURISM AWARD WATERFORD CITY & COUNTY COUNCIL

Deputy Mayor Joe Conway, Paul Daly, Paul Keeley of Fáilte Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT AWARDS 2017

PROMOTING BEST PRACTICE ECONOMIC IN CITIZEN DEVELOPMENT ENGAGEMENT:AWARD LIMERICK CITY & WATERFORD COUNTY COUNTYCOUNCIL COUNCIL

Mayor Stephen Keary, Bernadette Enright, Carmel Kirby, Seán McGlynn, Catherine Moroney, AIB, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

LOCAL AUTHORITY INNOVATION AWARD CORK CITY COUNCIL

Lord Mayor Tony Fitzgerald, Brian Geaney, Ann Doherty, Oliver O’Loughlin, Emer Connolly, Hannah Muirhead, LGIU, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

BEST PRACTICE SUSTAINABLE IN CITIZEN ENVIRONMENT ENGAGEMENT:AWARD KERRY COUNTY WATERFORD COUNCIL COUNTY COUNCIL Cathaoirleach John Sheahan, Charlie O’Sullivan, Michael Scannell, Kathleen Moriarity, Martin Tobin, European Recycling Platform, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

BEST LIBRARY SERVICE AWARD KILDARE COUNTY COUNCIL

Gillain Allen, Marian Higgins, Andrea Dermody, Niall Morrissey, Daragh Fitzpatrick, David McCoy, Waterford Crystal, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT AWARDS 2017

BEST PRACTICE SUSTAINING THE IN CITIZEN ARTS AWARD ENGAGEMENT: LONGFORD COUNTY WATERFORD COUNCIL COUNTY COUNCIL

Fergus Kennedy, Michael Nevin, Liam Tuohy, Zurich, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

JOINT LOCAL AUTHORITY INITIATIVE AWARD MONAGHAN COUNTY COUNCIL

Cathaoirleach Kathy Bennett, Karen McCague, Eamonn O’Sullivan, Carmel Cusack Smith, Adele Sleator, Eirgrid, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

BEST PRACTICE FESTIVAL OF IN CITIZEN THE YEAR AWARD ENGAGEMENT: DONEGAL COUNTY WATERFORD COUNCIL COUNTY COUNCIL

Cathaoirleach Gerry McMonagle, Daniel Browne, Shane Smyth, Seamus Healy, Paul Keeley, Fáilte Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD LIMERICK CITY & COUNTY COUNCIL

Mayor Stephen Keary, Laura Ryan, Orla O’Connor, Seán Atkinson, SIRO, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT AWARDS 2017

ENHANCING BEST PRACTICE THE URBAN IN CITIZEN ENVIRONMENT ENGAGEMENT:AWARD OFFALY COUNTY WATERFORD COUNCIL COUNTY COUNCIL

Leas Cathaoirleach John Clendennen, Frank Heslin, Councillor John Carroll, John Mitchell, John Clancy, Vodafone, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

HERITAGE AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT AWARD CORK COUNTY COUNCIL

Mayor Declan Hurley, John Ford, John Crotty, Tim Lucey, Karen Ferris, Ervia, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

DISABILITY BEST PRACTICE SERVICES IN CITIZEN PROVISION AWARD ENGAGEMENT: CORK CITY WATERFORD COUNCILCOUNCIL COUNTY

Lord Mayor Tony Fitzgerald, Ann Riordan, Ann Doherty, Paul Moynihan, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

COMMEMORATIONS AND CENTENARIES AWARD CAVAN COUNTY COUNCIL

Cathaoirleach Paddy McDonald, Tommy Ryan, Savina Donohoe, Michael Finnegan, John Clancy (An Post), Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Aidan O’Reilly, DHPLG

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IB PARTNER PROFILE KILDARE COUNTY COUNCIL

SUPPORTING SCHOOLS Kildare Library Services received the Best Library Service award at the Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards for its Support to Secondary Schools Programme.

By engaging with the library service, students are encouraged to join interesting workshops and consider future career opportunities.” creative writing and Irish, as well as interactive sessions that enhance engagement with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) through novel topics such as forensics and robotics. STEAM career tasters also form part of workshops on offer.

Most of the events take place in the community library, encouraging young participants to become

familiar with the library space and its available services, such as eBooks and eAudiobooks, online language learning, printing facilities, and free WiFi. Following the opening of a new library in Athy in early 2018, the service will be expanded, with Athy being added as a new Support for Secondary Schools Hub.

The Kildare Library Services winning team

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ildare Library Services’ Support to Secondary Schools Programme first ran in the 2012/13 academic year and has continued every year since, targeted at students who attend secondary schools in or near Naas, Leixlip and Kildare Town. It supports the school curriculum and provides career and personal development for students, with separate events aimed at Junior Cycle, Senior Cycle and Transition Year students. By engaging with the library service, students are encouraged to join interesting workshops and consider future career opportunities.

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22/12/2017 13:43

Comhairle Contae Mhuineachรกin Monaghan County Council

MAXIMISING & DRIVING

economic, community and cultural

DEVELOPMENT

within our county

contact www.monaghan.ie info@monaghancoco.ie eolas@monaghancoco.ie 00 353 47 30500

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IB PARTNER PROFILE MONAGHAN COUNTY COUNCIL

Business At The Border InBUSINESS speaks with Eamonn O’Sullivan, Chief Executive of Monaghan County Council – the Local Authority of the Year at this year’s Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards – to find out about the council’s past year and to look ahead to the next.

Q. Tell us about your role.

A. As Chief Executive, I am responsible for day-to-day operations, implementation of council policy decisions and the delivery of the objectives of the corporate plan. I work in partnership with the elected members and staff to develop and improve services for our citizens and businesses.

Q. Tell us about some of the projects you completed in 2017.

A. In 2017, we increased housing stock by 100 houses through new builds, acquisitions and purchases. We completed two significant national road pavement schemes – a 2km section of the N54 in

Lough Fea, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan

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IB Partner Profile_MonaghanCoCo.indd 85

Monaghan Town and the N53 from Castleblayney to the Northern Ireland border. A tender was approved for construction of the final phase of the N2 Monaghan to Emyvale Minor improvement works scheme, and in July, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) approved funding for an upgrade solution for the N2 through the development of a major road scheme from Castleblayney to Ardee. We also successfully secured the reactivation of the N2 Clontibret to the NI Border scheme in 2017, which had been suspended by the TII in 2012.

Q. Can you tell us about ongoing or future projects?

A. The Clones Renewal Scheme will aim to address derelict properties in Clones Town by encouraging people to live and work in the town centre. In partnership with Approved Housing Bodies, we will complete two housing developments in Carrickmacross, providing 71 social houses. In 2017, we received approval to proceed to tender for 16 houses at Latlorcan under the new Buy & Renew Scheme, and for eight new social houses at Bree in Castleblayney. We also approved Part 8 Planning for the construction of 43 social houses at Latlorcan.

In 2018, we hope to go to the construction stage of a new Peace Campus project which will bring youth, community, library and heritage facilities under one umbrella. Other capital projects include the renovation of Market House in Clones, the New Civil Defence HQ, new fire stations in Ballybay and Castleblayney, and the new library in Castleblayney. A tender is being prepared for the appointment of consultants for both the N2 Clontibret to the Norther Ireland border

and the N2 Ardee to Castleblayney schemes.

We will continue collaborations with Cavan and Monaghan Education and Training Board and other state agencies to implement the wide range of actions contained in the Local Economic and Community Plan (LECP).

Simultaneously, the Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) and Monaghan County Council will conduct a mid-term review of the LECP in 2018. The Council’s consultation and engagement with local business interests to support enterprise and job creation initiatives will continue and increase, and we will work to counter any negative impacts from Brexit and strive to identify any possible opportunities.

We will continue to support communities in the regeneration of our towns and villages through available governmentfunded grant schemes.

Q. What are the key opportunities for Monaghan at present?

A. The potential for inward investment and the growth of indigenous business. We also have a strong enterprising tradition, as well as a solid indigenous food and engineering sector. There are always opportunities to grow tourism in the county.

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South Dublin County Council wins the Best Practice in Citizen Engagement Award at Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards 2017.

The Annual Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards ceremony took place on Thursday 23 November in the Crowne Plaza, Santry in association with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government to celebrate the very best in Local Government in Ireland.

South Dublin County Council was delighted to win the Best Practice in Citizen Engagement Award, in recognition of the participatory budgeting initiative for the Lucan electoral area- €300K Have Your Say! Chief Executive Daniel McLoughlin commented “Citizen engagement is at the heart of public service so it is very encouraging to get national recognition for our efforts in this regard.

Particular recognition must go to our elected councillors who identified and resourced this initiative and are determined to expand its implementation into the future”.

South Dublin County Council will roll out the €300k Have Your Say! initiative to the Clondalkin electoral area in 2018.

Shortlisted in the following categories: Supporting Active Communities South Dublin County 55plus Daily Activity Planner Health and Wellbeing It’s not just a Race Best Library Service Digital Technologies – STEAM in South Dublin Libraries Enhancing the Urban Environment Ballyowen Equine Centre, Lucan, Co Dublin.

Commemorations and Centenaries Our Heroes - Ár Laochra Cllr Pamela Kearns and Elaine Leech accepting the award on behalf of South Dublin County Council.

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InBUSINESS RECOGNITION AWARDS 2O17

This year’s InBUSINESS Recognition Awards once again honoured exceptional achievement in Irish business.

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rish companies and individuals were honoured at the InBUSINESS Recognition Awards on December 6th at the Westin Dublin Hotel. Now in their sixth year, the awards recognise and honour exceptional achievement and innovation in Irish business. Hosted by Newstalk’s Business Editor Vincent Wall and comprising 20 different categories, the awards were kindly sponsored by ŠKODA Ireland.

Among the winners was Dublin Port which was named Company of the Year. Louise Phelan of Paypal was named Businesswoman of the Year, while Dave Kirwan of Bord Gáis Energy picked up the Businessman of the Year award.

THE WINNERS LIFE AND PENSIONS Zurich Life TOURISM Dublin Port ACCOUNTANCY KPMG E-COMMERCE Paypal PRIVATE BANKING AIB Private Banking BUSINESS SCHOOL Kemmy Business School ENERGY Bord Gáis Energy LAW Eversheds Sutherland EXECUTIVE CAR Audi A6 STATE BODY Enterprise Ireland COUNTY COUNCIL FOR FDI Fingal County Council CONFERENCE VENUE Convention Centre Dublin NEWCOMER Eversheds Sutherland BUSINESS BROADBAND Virgin Media SUPPORT TO SMES Bibby Financial Services SPECIAL MERIT AWARD ESB for CSR MANUFACTURING Intel BUSINESSMAN OF THE YEAR Dave Kirwan, Bord Gáis Energy BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR Louise Phelan, PayPal

Awards host Vincent Wall

COMPANY OF THE YEAR Dublin Port

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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Pat Ward, Head of Corporate Services, Dublin Port, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group

TOURISM DUBLIN PORT

Joe Creegan, Head of Corporate Life & Pensions, Zurich Life

LIFE ASSURANCE AND PENSIONS ZURICH LIFE

“IN ADDITION TO OUR AWARD-WINNING INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT TRACK RECORD, WE CONTINUE TO REVIEW OUR PRODUCT OFFERING TO MEET THE CHANGING DEMANDS OF OUR CUSTOMERS.” JOE CREEGAN, HEAD OF CORPORATE LIFE AND PENSIONS, ZURICH ACCOUNTANCY KPMG

Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Shaun Murphy, KPMG in Ireland, Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group

Niall Tuite, Head of Lending & Credit Management, AIB Private Banking

PRIVATE BANKING AIB PRIVATE BANKING

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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InBUSINESS RECOGNITION AWARDS 2O17

Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group, Mark Prentice, Head of Retail, Bord Gáis Energy, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland

ENERGY PROVIDER BORD GÁIS ENERGY

Alan Murphy, Managing Partner, Eversheds Sutherland

LAW FIRM EVERSHEDS SUTHERLAND

EXECUTIVE CAR AUDI A6

Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Yvonne Sweeney, Business Development Manager, Audi Ireland, Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group

COUNTY COUNCIL FINGAL COUNTY COUNCIL

“I’M DELIGHTED WITH THE AWARD, BECAUSE AWARDS SUCH AS THIS ARE A RECOGNITION THAT WHAT WE DO EVERY DAY AS A COUNCIL IS HAVING AN IMPACT.” PAUL REID, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, FINGAL COUNTY COUNCIL

Cllr Jimmy Guerin and Paul Reid, Chief Executive, Fingal County Council IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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E-COMMERCE PAYPAL

Louise Phelan, VicePresident of CEMEA at PayPal pictured with Vincent Wall

STATE BODY ENTERPRISE IRELAND

“THE AWARD MEANS A LOT TO THE WHOLE TEAM IN THE CCD,WHOSE COMMITMENT TO EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE CONTINUES TO DELIVER EVENTS THAT SURPASS OUR CLIENTS’ EXPECTATIONS TIME AND TIME AGAIN.” STEPHEN MEEHAN, CEO, CONVENTION CENTRE DUBLIN

“IT HAS BEEN A GREAT YEAR FOR PAYPAL AND MORE IMPORTANTLY FOR OUR CUSTOMERS.WE CAN ONLY SUCCEED WHEN OUR CUSTOMERS ARE SUCCEEDING TOO.” LOUISE PHELAN,VICEPRESIDENT OF CEMEA, PAYPAL

Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Joe Healy, Divisional Manager, Enterprise Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland

“SUPPORTING REGIONAL ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT AND WORKING WITH BUSINESSES TO ACHIEVE THEIR GLOBAL AMBITION IS A KEY FOCUS OF ENTERPRISE IRELAND.” JULIE SINNAMON, CEO, ENTERPRISE IRELAND

Stephen Meehan, CEO, Convention Centre Dublin

CONFERENCE VENUE CONVENTION CENTRE DUBLIN IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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InBUSINESS RECOGNITION AWARDS 2O17

BUSINESS BROADBAND VIRGIN MEDIA

Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Aidan D’Arcy, Head of Business, Virgin Media Ireland, Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland

“TECHNOLOGY IS A KEY DRIVER BUT IT’S THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE NAME THAT CREATE THE MAGIC.” AIDAN D’ARCY, HEAD OF BUSINESS,VIRGIN MEDIA IRELAND

NEWCOMER EVERSHEDS SUTHERLAND

“THE NEW OFFICE IN BELFAST WILL INCREASE THE EVERSHEDS FOOTPRINT ON THE ISLAND OF IRELAND AND THE UK, ENABLING US TO SERVICE OUR CLIENTS IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND OPEN UP OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEM INTERNATIONALLY.” ALAN MURPHY, MANAGING PARTNER, EVERSHEDS SUTHERLAND

Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Alan Murphy, Managing Partner, Eversheds Sutherland, Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group

SUPPORT TO SMES BIBBY FINANCIAL SERVICES

Aoife McGinley, Head of Operations, Bibby Financial Services Ireland

“WE PRIDE OURSELVES ON THE RELATIONSHIPS WE HAVE WITH OUR CLIENTS, GETTING TO KNOW THEM AND THEIR BUSINESSES SO WE CAN TAILOR FUNDING TO SUIT THEIR CURRENT AND FUTURE NEEDS. MARK O’ROURKE, HEAD OF BUSINESS, BIBBY FINANCIAL SERVICES IRELAND

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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BUSINESS SCHOOL KEMMY BUSINESS SCHOOL

“WE ARE ESPECIALLY PLEASED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH CHAMBERS IRELAND AS WE WORK CLOSELY WITH LIMERICK CHAMBER AND ITS CEO, DR JAMES RING.” PHILIP O’REGAN, DEAN, KEMMY BUSINESS SCHOOL

Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Philip O’Regan, Dean, Kemmy Business School, Tracey Carney, Event Director, Ashville Media Group

“MANUFACTURING IS CENTRAL TO WHO WE ARE AS A COMPANY AND OUR MANUFACTURING CAPABILITY HELPS US CONTINUOUSLY ADVANCE MOORE’S LAW, DELIVERING FASTER, MORE AFFORDABLE AND ENERGYEFFICIENT COMPUTING POWER.” EAMONN SINNOTT, GENERAL MANAGER, INTEL IRELAND

MANUFACTURING INTEL

Sarah Sexton, Communications Manager, Intel Ireland

SPECIAL MERIT ESB FOR CSR

“AS ESB LOOKS TO THE FUTURE, I AM IN NO DOUBT CSR WILL CONTINUE TO EVOLVE AND DEVELOP.” PAT NAUGHTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GROUP PEOPLE AND SUSTAINABILITY, ESB

Ian Talbot, CEO, Chambers Ireland, John Donegan, Brand Director, ŠKODA Ireland, Pat Naughton, Executive Director Group People and Sustainability, ESB, Tracey Carney, Event Director IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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InBUSINESS RECOGNITION AWARDS 2O17

BUSINESSMAN OF THE YEAR DAVE KIRWAN, BORD GÁIS ENERGY

“I WOULD LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE WITH WHOM I WORK IN BORD GÁIS ENERGY. TAKE A BOW, THIS AWARD IS YOURS MORE THAN MINE.” DAVE KIRWAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BORD GÁIS ENERGY

Dave Kirwan, Bord Gáis Energy

BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR LOUISE PHELAN, PAYPAL

“I’M ABSOLUTELY HONOURED AND I HOPE THAT MY STORY INSPIRES MORE WOMEN TO PUSH THEMSELVES FORWARD FOR LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES.” LOUISE PHELAN, VICEPRESIDENT OF CEMEA, PAYPAL

Louise Phelan, Paypal

“THIS AWARD SHINES A LIGHT ON A SUCCESSFUL YEAR FOR DUBLIN PORT ACROSS ALL AREAS OF THE BUSINESS, FROM TRADE AND TOURISM TO DEVELOPMENT, HERITAGE AND ARTS PROJECTS, AND THOSE IN OUR BUSINESS WHOSE COMMITMENT AND HARD WORK MAKE ALL THIS HAPPEN.” EAMONN O’REILLY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DUBLIN PORT COMPANY

COMPANY OF THE YEAR DUBLIN PORT

Eamonn O’Reilly, Chief Executive, Dublin Port Company

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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IB PARTNER PROFILE ŠKODA

Moving Up

a Gear Details of ŠKODA’s new SUV, the KAROQ, have been unveiled.

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KODA Ireland has revealed the full details of the eagerly anticipated KAROQ, the second model in the brand’s SUV offensive. The ŠKODA KAROQ made its debut on Irish soil in December and starts at just a27,715 for the well-equipped Ambition model.

New technologies, including a digital information display and a new 1.5 TSI petrol engine, will feature for the first time in a ŠKODA. The ŠKODA KAROQ sits just below its bigger brother, the KODIAQ, in the ŠKODA line-up, giving customers all the space, functionality and simply clever features that are synonymous with the brand. The ŠKODA KAROQ offers exceptional space and functionality for five people, with the ŠKODA Design language clear to see.

From its aggressive stance and offroad character to its LED lighting, use of high-quality materials and precise workmanship, the KAROQ makes a great first impression.

The positive impressions continue when you discover the optional Vario-Flex seats that can be adjusted forward and back, folded or completely removed, allowing for the boot capacity to be increased to a cavernous 1,810 litres if required, as well as the umbrella beneath the passenger seat and the optional electric tailgate. From a dimensions point-of-view it is larger than the Yeti, which it replaces, 160mm longer, 48mm wider and the boot capacity increasing by 105 litres. Despite this, the KAROQ is actually 13kg lighter than the outgoing Yeti.

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New technologies including driver-assistance systems and full LED headlights are featured and – for the first time in a ŠKODA – a digital instrument panel, which allows the driver to dynamically view numerous pieces of information at the touch of a button. The KAROQ comes with a choice of four engine variants, ranging from 116 HP to 150 BHP with three DSG offerings as well as a 150hp 4X4. The top navigation systems, Columbus and Amundsen, also offer a WiFi hotspot and an optional LTE module is available for the Columbus system for on board WiFi. A wireless phone charger can also be added to the KAROQ removing any smart phone battery life anxiety.

The Ambition trim comes standard with 17-inch Ratikon alloys, 8-inch touch screen Bolero radio, 2-zone Climatronic air-conditioning, rear parking sensors, Smart Link+ and chrome roof rails, and window surrounds. The Style trim adds 18-inch Mytikas alloys, 9.2-inch Columbus touch screen Sat Nav, sim card slot for ŠKODA Connect, rear view camera, DAB radio and Keyless Entry with Start/Stop botton.

Speaking at the launch of the KAROQ, Mark Mulvaney, PR Manager at ŠKODA Ireland, said: “After the huge success of the KODIAQ our SUV journey continues with the arrival of the KAROQ. This is a hugely important vehicle for us moving into 2018 and one that we see taking ŠKODA’s SUV range to the next level and I would encourage Irish customers to visit their local ŠKODA dealer to avail of a test drive over the coming weeks.”

For further information visit www.skoda.ie.

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IB PARTNER PROFILE BARBICAN

Adopting A Compliant Culture The GDPR is taking existing law and best practice, and making it riskier for organisations to ignore, writes Hilary Treacy, founder of data protection consultancy firm Barbican.

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oes your business know of all the personal data it gathers, processes and stores?

This is the first basic requirement for any organisation when attempting to meet its data protection obligations.

When you don’t know what you have, how can you know if you are processing it legally?

All organisations, of all sizes – whether B2B, B2C, charities or voluntary groups – are expected to be compliant with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when it becomes enforceable in May 2018.

EU citizens’ right to privacy is recognised as a fundamental human right. The GDPR aims to protect individuals’ personal data through imposing obligations on those with whom data is shared. We now have less than six months left of a

Hilary Treacy, Founder, Barbican

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We now have less than six months left of a two-year grace period granted by the EU for organisations to get their personal data processes compliant with EU law, or else face the consequences. By the end of May, the Data Protection Commissioner will have the power to enforce the GDPR.” two-year grace period granted by the EU for organisations to get their personal data processes compliant with EU law, or else face the consequences. By the end of May, the Data Protection Commissioner will have the power to enforce the GDPR. This is a serious issue for organisations, which will now face the risk of litigation from data subjects where their human right has been violated. On top of that, enhanced powers have been granted to the Data Protection Commissioner to impose penalties on non-compliant organisations, and possibly most damaging of all, an organisation will risk a loss of goodwill and damage to their reputation where they fail to take data protection seriously. The GDPR is taking existing law and best practice, and making it riskier for organisations to ignore, all for the benefit of the individuals whose data is in their possession.

Even with a compliant culture and good organisational and technical

measures in place, breaches of data protection are often down to employee negligence. It only takes one person to inadvertently cause a data breach. Regular training and a campaign of awareness across an organisation will help to mitigate this risk.

Barbican has experience in providing such education and training, as well as in handling data subject access requests, drafting policies, cooperating with Data Protection Commissioner audits and carrying out data protection risk assessments.

We are based in Portlaoise, which allows for a reach right around the country. We have clients based all around Ireland – in Cork, Galway, Dublin and the midlands – all availing of data protection training (CPD accredited), data protection compliance gap analyses and outsourced data protection officer services.

Barbican helps organisations to identify where current data protection practices may be falling short, and further helps organisations to improve their compliance level.

Follow Barbican on @BarbicanDPS and see Barbican’s website on www.barbican.ie

DID YOU KNOW? As a regulation, the GDPR will have a ‘direct effect’, which means it will not require transposition into Irish law, so organisations involved in data processing must be aware that the regulation addresses them directly in terms of the obligations it imposes.

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IB PARTNER PROFILE IMDO

A Strategy Making Waves Launched by the Irish Government in 2012, the Harnessing Our Ocean Wealth (HOOW) strategy has been a game-changer for Ireland’s ocean economy, with the sector now outperforming growth in the general economy.

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trategically situated on the western edge of Europe along the European Atlantic Seaboard, Ireland’s coastal and offshore waters contain a wealth of assets, including some of the largest and most valuable sea fisheries resources in Europe, one of the most valuable sources of offshore renewable energy in the world, and waters that offer a spectacular range of biodiversity.

These waters are also the western gateway for shipping to Europe’s busiest seaports and are an ideal location for offshore aquaculture. They contain significant oil and gas resource potential and are the backdrop to fascinating coastlines that are driving the coastal tourism market. Taking its seabed area into account, Ireland is one of the largest EU states with sovereign or exclusive rights over a 220 million acre marine resource, representing a sea to land ratio of approximately 10:1. Ireland also has a coastline of 7,500km, which is longer than that of many European countries.

However, in comparison to other maritime nations, Ireland’s marine

While growth in the general economy was approximately 8 per cent from 2012 to 2014, growth in the ocean economy was 19 per cent. The ocean economy currently represents 0.9 per cent of GDP.” 96

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sector has historically underperformed in terms of contribution to GDP. Recognising the need for a stepchange in our ability as a nation to harness our ocean wealth, the Irish Government launched an integrated marine plan for Ireland called the Harnessing Our Ocean Wealth (HOOW) strategy in 2012. This strategy is being driven from the highest levels of government and represents a unique and joined-up approach for growing our blue economy.

This has been a game-changer for Ireland’s ocean economy, with the sector now outperforming growth in the general economy in recent economic figures released by the Socio Economic Marine Research Unit (SEMRU) at NUI Galway. For example, while growth in the general economy was approximately 8 per cent from 2012 to 2014, growth in the ocean economy was 19 per cent. The ocean economy currently represents 0.9 per cent of GDP, with recent figures suggesting that HOOW is moving steadily towards its target of 2.4 per cent by 2030.

These figures demonstrate the enormous potential of this sector, but what are the key areas of opportunity for industry? According to the most recent figures published by SEMRU in the report on Ireland’s Ocean Economy (2017), established marine industries represented 93 per cent of total turnover in 2016. In these industries, the largest increase in activity from previous figures was evident in oil

and gas, marine aquaculture and marine tourism and leisure, and these sectors certainly present a wealth of opportunities for further growth in the not-too-distant future. However, it is clear that the emerging marine sectors are currently excelling in terms of growth and offer significant potential in areas such as marine technology products and services, maritime commerce, marine biotechnology and marine renewable energy.

ABOUT IMDO The Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) is Ireland’s dedicated development, promotional and marketing agency for the maritime sector. It supports the development of indigenous maritime industry and works with international business across all areas of the maritime sector to help them set-up or expand in Ireland. It also provides government and industry with a range of information and reporting across the sector, offers independent advice and guidance on EU funding initiatives, and is Ireland’s designated Shortsea Shipping Agency. Part of the Marine Institute, it is a government agency under the aegis of the Department of Transport, Tourism & Sport.

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LEINSTER • MUNSTER • CONNAUGHT • ULSTER Fingal signs agreement with EIB, success for Louth at Enterprise Awards, and Laois County Council to spend 30m on housing.

Kerry angling projects awarded funding, EIB commits 85m to Limerick, and Waterford allocated funds for protected structures.

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Greenway goals outlined by Mayo County Council, Galway sport clubs receive funding boost, and major investment in wastewater infrastructure.

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LAND OF OPPORTUNITY Following an impressive year which saw growth in multiple areas, Cork is continuously evolving into a high-tech and attractive location.

GETTING CONSTRUCTIVE A look at BAM Ireland’s activities in Cork

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LIMERICK RENAISSANCE

In Association with

The Limerick 2030 Economic and Spatial Plan has brought about significant changes within the city and county.

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FINGAL SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH EIB

INVESTMENT AREAS The Framework Loan Agreement with EIB will allow for investment in capital projects in areas such as: • Transport, connectivity and housing land activation

• Tourism promotion and visitor attractions

• Enterprise development and job creation

• Environmental investment

WHAT’S ON IN

LEINSTER

• Social and cultural facilities

25TH JANUARY RECRUITING & RETAINING TALENTED EMPLOYEES Co Carlow

Fingal County Council has signed a a70 million Framework Loan Agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB) which will trigger a a180m investment in strategic infrastructure projects within the county’s Capital Development Plan. Commenting on the news, Paul Reid, CEO, Fingal County Council, said: “The outlook for the Fingal economy is very positive at present and we have major plans for development. This funding will allow us to fast-track the delivery of our capital programme and safeguard the next phase of growth.”

22ND FEBRUARY 15TH – 19TH MARCH TALENT SUMMIT TRADFEST KILKENNY DUBLIN 2018 Co Kilkenny The Convention Centre Dublin

23RD MARCH FARMEX: THE BUSINESS OF FARMING EXHIBITION RDS, Dublin

[ COUNTY LAOIS ] [ COUNTY LOUTH ]

SUCCESS FOR LOUTH AT ENTERPRISE AWARDS Three Louth towns were shortlisted at the Bank of Ireland Enterprising Towns National Finals at an awards ceremony in November, with Ardee, Carlingford and Drogheda being recognised. Thomas McEvoy of Local Enterprise Office Louth said: “We know how enterprising and entrepreneurial the people of this county are and we are here to support them every step of the way. It was truly wonderful for Ardee, Carlingford and Drogheda to make it through to the finals of this competition.”

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COUNCIL TO SPEND A30M ON HOUSING Laois County Council has revealed it will spend a30m in the next two years buying and building homes. The Council’s housing acquisition programme will spend a4.5m of state-granted cash to buy existing homes or buildings and make them ready for new tenants. The housing construction programme has a budget of a25m to build new council homes. There will be another a300,000 spent in improvement works to local authority houses. Another a555,000 will be spent on an energy efficiency programme for council houses.

[ COUNTY LONGFORD ]

A160K ALLOCATED FOR GREENWAY EXTENSION Longford County Council is to receive an allocation of an extra a160,000 to finish an additional 2.5km of the greenway along the Royal Canal. The council and Waterways Ireland were awarded funding of a350,000 towards the completion of a 6.1km section of a greenway along the canal earlier this year. Minister Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran says he is happy that the good work already carried out can be enhanced by this extra funding.

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COUNCIL PASSES A160M BUDGET FOR 2018 Cork City Council has agreed a a160 million budget for 2018, an increase of a7.6m on 2017.

Lord Mayor, Cllr Tony Fitzgerald welcomed the budget, which will focus on increasing and improving social housing. “There will be a continued focus on returning vacant homes back into availability for people on the social housing list next year...

The housing directorate is also seeking a a11m grant from the Housing Finance Agency to carry out badly needed housing maintenance,” he said.

1ST FEBRUARY GROWTHCLUB BUSINESS PLANNING WORKSHOP Killarney, Co Kerry

FUNDING BREAKDOWN Up to a46.57m will be spent on housing in 2018, with another a26.7m on roads, a32.5m on environmental services and a22m on recreation and amenity services.

6TH FEBRUARY ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY WITH IPAD Co Limerick

14TH FEBRUARY WIT LEAN PRACTITIONER SEMINAR SERIES 2017-2018 WIT Arena, Co Waterford

14TH MARCH IERC ENERGY RESILIENCE IN A LOW CARBON ECONOMY Fota Island Hotel, Co Cork

WHAT’S ON IN

MUNSTER

[ COUNTY LIMERICK ]

EIB COMMITS A85M TO LIMERICK The European Investment Bank (EIB) has committed a85m in lending to Limerick City and County Council, in what is its largest ever urban investment in Ireland. The deal was signed at Limerick City and County Council’s corporate headquarters by Andrew McDowell, EIB Vice President and Conn Murray, Chief Executive of Limerick City and Country Council. Speaking after the deal had been signed, Murray stated: “This commitment by the bank is a statement of the confidence and sense of ambition that Limerick has today.”

[ COUNTY WATERFORD ]

WATERFORD ALLOCATED FUNDS FOR PROTECTED STRUCTURES The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has announced that Waterford has been allocated a104,000 under the Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2018 (BHIS). The BHIS seeks to leverage private capital for investment in small-scale, labour-intensive projects and to support the employment of skilled conservation professionals, craftspeople and tradespersons in the repair of protected structures and in the conservation of structures within Architectural Conservation Areas (ACA). The scheme will be administered by Waterford City and County Council.

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[ COUNTY KERRY ]

KERRY ANGLING PROJECTS AWARDED FUNDING Six angling projects in Kerry have been awarded funding by Inland Fisheries Ireland. The funding was announced by the Minister with responsibility for the Inland Fisheries Sector, Sean Kyne, as part of the National Strategy for Angling Development. a2.2m has been awarded to 115 angling development and conservation initiatives around the country, including six in Kerry.

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MAJOR INVESTMENT

IN WASTEWATER INFRASTRUCTURE The Cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council, Councillor Seamus Kilgannon has welcomed the recent announcement by Irish Water that over a16m will be invested in Co Sligo’s wastewater infrastructure.

The Cathaoirleach said: “The works are expected to commence early next year, and in addition to bringing improved water quality, will also enhance our environment and development potential.”

WHAT’S ON IN

CONNAUGHT

18TH JANUARY GDPR FOUNDATION - 1 DAY COURSE GMIT, Castlebar, Co Mayo

19TH – 21ST JANUARY MIDWINTER FESTIVAL 2018 Co Galway

18TH FEBRUARY ULTIMATE WEDDINGS LIVE CASTLEBAR Castlebar, Co Mayo

24TH FEBRUARY JOBS EXPO GALWAY 2018 Radisson Blu Hotel, Co Galway

[ COUNTY MAYO ] [ COUNTY GALWAY ]

GALWAY SPORT CLUBS RECEIVE FUNDING BOOST Galway City Council has announced a120,000 in allocations to 43 different sports clubs, with 25 clubs receiving the maximum grant amount of a3,500. The funding allocated to the successful clubs will go towards the costs of equipment, coaching, travel as well as a significant level going towards upskilling volunteers.

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GREENWAY GOALS OUTLINED BY COUNCIL A senior official with Mayo County Council has told councillors that the goal for the county is to have 200km of greenways to make Mayo the first destination of choice for cyclists. Padraig Philbin, a senior executive engineer with Mayo County Council, outlined this vision when giving an update on the 19km Westport to Louisburgh Greenway, which will be known as the Clew Bay Trail. This project came about after Minister for Rural Affairs, Michael Ring allocated nearly a1m towards it last summer, and will see the construction of 8km of walking and cycling trails.

[ COUNTY LEITRIM ]

FUNDING GRANTED TO LEITRIM SCHOOLS Funding has been granted to 37 primary schools in Co Leitrim under the Minor Works Scheme. Speaking to the Leitrim Observer, Fine Gael Sligo/ Leitrim Deputy, Tony McLoughlin said: “[The schools] will receive a flat rate Minor Works Grant of a5,500 plus a18.50 per mainstream pupil and a74 per special needs pupil attending a special school or special class. The grant is worth a6,425 for a 50-pupil school and over a11,000 for a 300-pupil school.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:41

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS NEWS: ULSTER

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MONAGHAN SHOWS “EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP” At a ceremony in November, Monaghan County Council was named Local Authority of the Year at the Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards.

Commenting on the win, Ian Talbot, Chief Executive, Chambers Ireland said: “Monaghan County Council has shown exceptional leadership through a vision for the future development of the locality and the broader economic region. Monaghan has demonstrated tremendous ambition and capacity for innovation across numerous projects and is recognised for its willingness to share best practice with peers.”

20TH – 27TH JANUARY LETTERKENNY TRAD WEEK Letterkenny, Co Donegal

28TH JANUARY THE BEAUTY FACTOR Slieve Russell Hotel, Co Cavan

CHAMBERS IRELAND ELG AWARDS The event took place on November 23rd 2017 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dublin 9. There were sixteen awards presented on the night plus the overall award for Local Authority of the Year. For more details revert to page 78 onwards.

10TH FEBRUARY VALENTINE’S CHARITY BALL IN AID OF PIETA HOUSE McGettigan’s Hotel, Co Donegal

2ND – 10TH MARCH CASTLEBLAYNEY DRAMA FESTIVAL Iontas Theatre, Co Monaghan

WHAT’S ON IN ULSTER

[ COUNTY CAVAN ]

FUNDING SET TO GET THE ELDERLY ACTIVE Cavan Fine Gael Senator Joe O’Reilly has confirmed that 43 local sports groups will receive funding totalling a11,090 to help older people get more active in the local community by providing them with opportunities to engage in physical activity and sport. Welcoming the allocations, Senator O’Reilly said: “Over the last 17 years the National Grant Scheme funding has supported and empowered thousands of groups of older people to get more active more often and the record number of applications this year shows the continued importance of the scheme for groups throughout the country.” [ COUNTY DONEGAL ]

BOOST FOR DONEGAL’S DIGITAL AMBITIONS The Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council, Cllr. Gerry McMonagle has welcomed confirmation that the new Inishowen Digital Innovation Hub has been successful in its application for funding under Stream 2 of Enterprise Ireland’s Regional Development Enterprise Fund. Stream 2 sees projects being awarded grants of a250,000 up to a2m.

Cathaoirleach McMonagle said: “This Digital Innovation Hub will see the former Buncrana Town Council office transformed into an attractive innovation space. It will see the creation of a functioning innovation centre that will deliver a three-year capacity building programme for enterprise resulting in increased levels of innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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[ COUNTY CAVAN ]

NEWS OF CAVAN INSTITUTE CAMPUS WELCOMED Fine Gael Senator for Cavan, Joe O’Reilly has welcomed the news that a new Cavan Institute campus will be built at the former army barracks on the Dublin Road. “I am delighted with this investment in our educational infrastructure in Cavan under this Fine Gael-led Government. This announcement delivers on a commitment provided to me by our last Taoiseach Enda Kenny when he visited Cavan town,” he commented.

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Land of

OPPORTUNITY Following an impressive year which saw growth in multiple areas, Cork is continuously evolving into a hightech and attractive location, as InBUSINESS discovered.

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s the second largest city in Ireland, Cork has spent the last few decades evolving into a hightech hub with a thriving culture of innovation, business and technology.

With the highest level of job creation in the country, it is now home to many global market leaders in the pharmaceutical and ICT sectors.

Large multinationals such as Apple, Dell EMC and VMware have been growing operations in Cork, as have companies representing the fast-moving cybersecurity cluster, such as AlienVault, FireEye, and Trend Micro. Seven of the world’s top ten biopharma companies have operations in the county.

At time of writing, the city and its surrounding area has a cluster of over 150 international companies, employing close to 34,000 people, with impressive clusters in life sciences, technology, global business services and emerging areas such as international financial services and cybersecurity. Over the last seven years, Cork has seen consistent growth in the numbers gaining employment across international companies – an increase of 11,500 people since 2009.

In December, the national recruitment and HR services group Collins McNicholas released the results of the Cork Tech Talent Relocation Survey, which found

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“OVER THE LAST SEVEN YEARS, CORK HAS SEEN CONSISTENT GROWTH IN THE NUMBERS GAINING EMPLOYMENT ACROSS INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES – AN INCREASE OF 11,500 PEOPLE SINCE 2009.”

that highly skilled tech professionals from all over the world are moving to Cork for a better quality of life, career opportunities, shorter commutes and lower living costs.

The survey, which was carried out in conjunction with Cork Chamber, IDA Ireland and Cork City Council, included responses from workers of 27 different nationalities, with twothirds having relocated to Cork over the last two years.

When asked about the factors which influenced their move to Cork, 73 per cent cited a better quality of life, while 72 per cent referred to a reduced cost of living.

The other main reasons given were lower property prices, less traffic, more career opportunities, beautiful scenery and a safer environment.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:41

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A BIG YEAR FOR JOBS There was a number of significant jobs announcements in Cork throughout 2017, from companies including: • Janssen Sciences Ireland • MSD • Alter Domus • Zevas • AlienVault

The report has helped to shine a light on the opportunities that Cork offers, as noted by Conor Healy, CEO of Cork Chamber of Commerce.

“There are significant opportunities where people can build a career and move across various companies within strong clusters such as ICT, life sciences, energy, marine, agrifood, tourism and financial services,” he noted in relation to the report’s findings. “Combine this with a very high quality of life that is unique in its urban and rural mix and you have a winning formula. People have the choice to live in a rural or urban environment with exciting job opportunities on their doorstep.”

A YEAR OF PROGRESS In 2017, many new plans and developments set the stage for an even brighter future for Cork. In November, a key milestone was reached as the largest concrete pour in the history of the city was carried out to form part of the basement floor for the first building at the county’s largest ever development, Navigation Square. The a90 million InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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office development, which started on site in June, is expected to be capable of hosting 3,000 employees when fully occupied and will undoubtedly prove to be a hugely positive addition to the region.

In the same month, Cork County Council was recognised at the Chambers Ireland Excellence in Local Government Awards, nominated for six awards and winning two.

The awards, an annual event, showcase best practice in local government and recognise the skills, hard work and innovation within local government that can often go unrecognised. Speaking at the awards, Chief Executive of Cork County Council, Tim Lucey commented: “These awards are recognition of the evolving culture we, as an organisation, are operating and excelling in and demonstrate the incredible commitment of staff to Cork communities together with the skillset required to deliver ongoing modernisation and change.”

Earlier, in September, ambitious plans for a a160m development at Horgan’s Quay were announced.

After completion, this development is expected to become home to 5,000 employees, more than 200 apartments and a 136-bed hotel.

The plans also include nearly 3,000 square metres of restaurants and retail space, as well as a significant investment in the city’s public realm.

The project is to be developed by HQ Developments Limited, a joint venture by Clarendon Properties and BAM Ireland.

It has never been easier to connect internationally to Cork, with Cork Airport flying to over 50 destinations across the UK, Europe and, more recently, the US. Evidence of the airport’s growth came in October, as the airport welcomed a 4 per cent increase in passenger numbers compared to the same month in 2016. Records show that 197,316 passengers flew through the airport in October 2017, with 42,000 passengers alone flying throughout the course of the October Bank Holiday weekend.

Recent announcements by SWISS, Volotea and Aer Lingus Regional suggest an early indicator of continued growth for 2018.

Undoubtedly, Cork has taken massive strides in recent years, and things don’t appear to be slowing down. With a large number of global companies located there, a highly educated and skilled workforce at its disposal, and with increased levels of investment being directed into the region, the future for Cork looks bright.

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22/12/2017 16:01

Blarney Castle 30min

‘Small city, big welcome’ Fota Wildlife Park 10min

Jameson Distillery 10min

Cork City 20min

Corner Stone of Ireland’s Ancient East

Titanic Experience 5min

The Gateway to Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way

Port of Cork, Custom House St., Cork, Ireland T12 CY88 T: +353 21 4273 125 | E: info@portofcork.ie @portofcork portofcork.ie /portofcork WWW

POC_general_2017_ad_A4_v.1.indd 1 !0.04.indd 1 FC advert template.indd 1 243796_1C_Port of Cork_JM_Chambers

15/09/2017 15:04 20/12/2017 20/12/2017 16:45 15:33

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS BAM IRELAND

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Getting Constructive

in Cork

InBUSINESS speaks with Cork native Theo Cullinane, BAM Ireland CEO, to get the lowdown on BAM Ireland’s activities in Cork throughout 2017 and to find out what’s in store for the new year.

Q. How has business in Cork been for BAM Ireland throughout 2017?

A. BAM was involved in the delivery of several landmark pieces of infrastructure in Cork in 2017. We continued work on the historic new Courthouse Building on Anglesea Street, one of seven courthouses around the country under the Courts Bundle PPP. In September, BAM commenced construction on Cork city centre’s largest office scheme at Navigation Square, which will facilitate the provision of 3,000 jobs, and work is continuing on the new Oncology Building at Cork University Hospital.

The recently completed Capitol Cinema retail and office development and One Albert Quay in the heart of the city and City Gate Park at Mahon Point will give a major boost to the region.

We also began work on 400 units of high quality student accommodation at the old Beamish and Crawford site on South Main Street that will be ready for occupation in 2019.

Q. What Cork projects are planned for 2018?

A. We hope to begin work on a major city centre development at Sullivan’s InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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Quay which will see a new 193-bed four-star hotel and a six-storey office in the heart of the city. We plan to begin work on a new office building which will include the refurbishment of the existing Counting House.

We remain committed to delivering the Event Centre for Cork and hope to make progress on the development in the new year. In September, we announced a joint venture with the Clarendon Group for a a160 million waterfront development at Horgan’s Quay. This will create a new urban quarter in Cork incorporating three office blocks, a 136bed hotel, 237 apartments and retail and leisure facilities.

between the city and other urban centres. In this regard, it has been encouraging to see the Government re-open the plan for the CorkLimerick motorway which will be vital for the economic growth of Cork and the whole south-West region.

Q. Where are the areas of greatest opportunity for Cork today?

A. The announcement this year from Cork City Council of plans for a

a1 billion redevelopment of 200 hectares of land on the City Docks and Tivoli Docks is hugely exciting and a sign that the Council is willing to show ambition and long-term thinking regarding investment in Cork’s future. The overall extension of the city boundaries agreed in early December should also help to facilitate the growth of the city. Continuing to make investments like the proposed Cork Docklands Development will allow Cork to attract more FDI and more business talent, creating a virtuous cycle that will ensure a bright future for the city.

Q. From your perspective, what are the main challenges facing Cork today?

A. Success brings its challenges and Cork must have the proper planning and assets in place to ensure it can manage the volume and pace of movement that one would expect in a premier European business hub.

Well-integrated transport systems must be in place both within Cork and

Theo Cullinane, CEO, BAM Ireland

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Unbeatable Reach New Cork-based company Nova Telecom is providing cutting-edge, highbandwidth connectivity for businesses across Ireland.

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ctober saw the official launch of Nova Telecom, a cutting-edge, highbandwidth connectivity service provider for businesses at its headquarters in Fota Business Park, Carrigtwohill. This business telecoms company, which offers internet, voice and data products, is new to the market, yet is making waves among big business brands including Ballycotton Seafood, Atlas Box & Crating, and Zenith Technologies.

Following a successful pilot rollout, Nova Telecom is now connecting business customers to its new unified MPLS network. This development allows Nova to link businesses up nationally to a single unified network using any combination of fibre optic, fibre to the cabinet, microwave or fixed wireless, depending on location.

This provides unprecedented coverage

Dave McDonald, CEO, Nova Telecom

and flexibility, coupled with significant cost savings.

Speaking about how Nova Telecom is different to its competitors, CEO Dave Mc Donald says: “We have brought years of experience in fibre and licensed microwave networks to Nova Telecom, and are catering specifically to the unique needs of business customers.

We offer a full range of business communications services over our national IP/ MLPS network. We have unbeatable reach nationally via carrier fibre networks and our extensive network of microwave tower sites.

“We couple core competency with a personal level of service and unbeatable support, which is built and managed by our Irish-based engineering, NOC and support teams who have huge experience in the Irish market. Our team will provide a seamless experience from sales through to product delivery, right through to ongoing support, something I feel as a business owner is a necessity.”

The new service is already trusted by thousands of Irish and multinational business users, in both the enterprise and SME sectors, for mission-critical

telecommunications services.

John Guerin, Corporate Quality & IT Manager, Zenith Technologies, explains how important Nova Telecom is to his business operations. “Connectivity and communication is the lifeblood of our organisation,” he says. “The company’s business systems are housed in Cork and accessed remotely from our offices in China, Singapore, India, Europe and USA. Our Nova connection is therefore a vital part of our infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Adam Lipski, Head of CS/IT Support at Atlas Box & Crating explains why he chose Nova Telecom over its competitors. “When it comes to internet services, what really matters is whether your ISP can deliver what they promise Nova Telecom can deliver some of the highest speeds available. They have the means to improve and add infrastructure, create and purchase new technologies, and provide customer service as you demand it.”

Head of Sales at Nova Telecom, Jason Spain, explains how his team really understands the needs of businesses for both speed and seamless delivery, and how they have managed to secure both. “We peer directly with leading cloud, content and service providers over multi-gigabit high-capacity direct peering links located locally in Ireland,” he says. “This means that your traffic will flow to and from these networks all over private, low-latency managed infrastructure, avoiding the public internet, and maintaining maximum throughput and speed for your critical cloud-based applications.”

Nova Telecom specialises in business internet access services; and a full range of options to suit enterprise and SME customers is now available nationwide.

For more information see www.novatelecom.ie.

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:07

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS AM O’SULLIVAN PR

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THE MESSAGE FROM CORK AM O’Sullivan PR specialises in strategic communications across multiple sectors, with a particular focus on crisis and issue management.

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M O’Sullivan PR is a Cork-based strategic communications consultancy with an international reach. Its vision is to be the leading strategic communications consultancy in Ireland. It works with indigenous and multinational clients, including six of the top ten global life sciences companies. As the only nonDublin based member of the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), AM O’Sullivan PR has proved that a world-class business can be based in Cork.

It’s not only the company saying that – for the second year running, AM O’Sullivan PR was named Cork Communications Company of the

Year at the Cork Business Awards.

It has also been shortlisted for Best Professional Services Business in the Cork Business Association Awards.

AM O’Sullivan PR provides a range of services, including reputation management, stakeholder engagement, crisis communication, media relations and presentation skills training, to clients in a variety of sectors such as life sciences, healthcare, education, energy, consumer and construction.

The O’Sullivan name has been synonymous with public relations in Ireland since 1969, and emphasises AM O’Sullivan PR’s well-deserved reputation for delivering campaigns with honesty, experience and vision.

AM O’Sullivan PR understands that communications activity must be planned and strategically delivered in order to be successful. It instils its communications strategies with confidence, understanding and skill, focusing on identifying and communicating with its clients’ key stakeholders in order to create awareness, to educate and to build brands coherently and effectively.

Put simply, the company understands that effectiveness is only achieved by conveying the right message through the right channel to the right audience.

For more information visit www.amosullivanpr.ie or find them on Twitter @amosullivanpr

We are a Corkbased strategic communications consultancy with an international reach.

Our vision is to be the leading Irish strategic communications consultancy.

We work with indigenous and multi-national clients, including six of the top ten global life sciences companies.

Tel: +353 (0)21 466 3076 email: info@amosullivanpr.ie Web: www.amosullivanpr.ie Twitter: @amosullivanpr The Lodge, University Technology Centre, Curraheen Road, Bishopstown, Cork, T12 KR52

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22/12/2017 11:08

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EDUCATING CORK Cork Education and Training Board is helping to drive education across the county.

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ork Education and Training Board (CETB) is responsible for the provision of post primary education, further education and training programmes across a range of fields in the Cork region. CETB is a driving force of education and training in Cork, planning and supporting education, training and youth services in the county, which are recognised internationally as a model of excellence.

CETB runs two training centres in Cork. The first, Cork Training Centre, delivers an extensive variety

of training to a range of clients including those entering the labour market for the first time, job changers, persons wishing to update their skills, those changing careers, persons with a disability and early school leavers.

The other, the Cork Training Centre Biopharma facility, celebrated its tenth anniversary in May 2017 and is an integral source of education and training for those involved in the pharma, biopharma and medtech industries to enhance their practical diagnostic skills.

CETB continues to enhance its links with business and industry, ensuring that its education and

training programmes match local labour market needs, as well as reflecting national trends. Providing courses and training for those in employment is extremely important, as upskilling and retraining to develop additional skills is a vital component for sustained development and competitiveness.

CETB always seeks to improve communication with business and industry in order to improve its ability to respond to emerging education and training needs. It continues to review all programmes to ensure that they meet learners’ needs. CETB has built on the traditions, strengths and histories of the Cork region and has established itself as a dynamic leader in education and training provision across the region.

Do you want to open doors to your future?

Cork Education and Training Board is the largest provider of education and training in Cork, delivering: • Primary Education • Post primary Education • Further Education

• Training • Adult and Community Education

Through our services, we are committed to providing a “Pathway for Every Learner”

For details of all our locations and courses go to www.corketb.ie Cork Education and Training Board 21 Lavitt’s Quay, Cork Phone : 021 4907100

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22/12/2017 11:09

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS MONTENOTTE HOTEL

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STAYING UNIQUE With its stunning location and quality facilities, the Montenotte Hotel in Cork promises to offer its guests a unique experience, writes Brian Bowler, General Manager.

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s Cork’s freshest four-star boutique hotel, the promise we make to our guests is to #StayUnique. What makes Montenotte Hotel unique? Some say it’s our exquisitely refurbished rooms, or our in-house cinema. Some think it is the uniqueness of our location – a stroll from many of Cork’s highlights and overlooking the beautiful city, yet away from the noise and traffic. Others extol our restaurant, with its fresh cuisine and fabulous cocktails.

Whatever the case, there is something for everyone. This was recognised in 2017 as the hotel was awarded Ireland’s Best City Hotel at the Gold Medal Awards. This was such an exciting time for the team here, as

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being recognised by the industry for all of their hard work and dedication was fantastic.

In February 2017, we were lead sponsor of the prestigious Cork Chamber Annual Dinner, which was a wonderful opportunity for us to showcase the Montenotte as a leading hotel in Cork City to local and international companies, many of which have since become loyal customers.

“WE WERE THE LEAD SPONSOR OF THE PRESTIGIOUS CORK CHAMBER ANNUAL DINNER.”

Looking ahead to the new year, we are currently refurbishing part of the original mansion house into six treatment rooms, a hair salon and a nail-bar, all of which will open in March 2018. We are very excited about this addition to the hotel, as it is something to offer our guests, whether they are corporate clients or those simply enjoying a relaxing escape to Cork city.

There is always an ongoing plan for the future at the Montenotte Hotel; after all, our promise is to #StayUnique.

We will continue to evolve our product and service offering, all the while taking the opportunity to listen to our customers to ensure that we are meeting their expectations.

17/11/2017 14:33

22/12/2017 11:11

KEMMY BUSINESS SCHOOL CONNECTING WITH INDUSTRY AT POSTGRADUATE, UNDERGRADUATE & RESEARCH LEVEL

www.ul.ie/business •

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/BusinessAtUL •

/BusinessAtUL •

/kemmy-business-school-kbs-alumni

21/12/2017 10:23

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS LIMERICK CITY & COUNTY COUNCIL

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LIMERICK

RENAISSANCE In 2013, the Limerick 2030 Economic and Spatial Plan was established. As a result, four years on, significant changes within the city and county can be witnessed.

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he word ‘renaissance’ was initially used to describe what would unfold in Limerick over the 17 years of the Limerick 2030 Economic and Spatial Plan. It is a word loaded with expectation, but the few years since have shown it is more than being fulfilled, as the vision for a dynamic new city begins to shine through.

More than 12,000 jobs have been announced since 2013, with 2,615 positions announced since the start of 2017 alone. There has been more than a1.6 billion of investment by new or existing companies in Limerick since the plan was published, and the city is now the fastest growing Irish region for foreign direct investment outside Dublin.

The redevelopment of the city centre is also well underway thanks to the establishment of Limerick Twenty Thirty Strategic Development DAC, now just over a year old.

Focused initially on city projects like the Opera Site and its Gardens International sister-site on Henry Street, it will ultimately deliver a city and county programme of investment that amounts to the biggest commercial property play undertaken outside the capital.

Innovate Limerick, which is helping to drive innovation across the city and county, has already claimed some major wins, including the development of a 35,000 square foot innovation hub at Roxboro. Engine, in the city centre, will co-locate FDI companies and provide shared workspace, along with a production and digital skills hub to ensure InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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An aerial view of Limerick city

that the skills required for film production are available in Limerick.

Meanwhile, Troy Studios is creating a completely new industry in Limerick and is currently in production for a major new international series.

Innovate Limerick has also been the driver behind the establishment of the Innovation Factory in the former Anderson jewellery manufacturing facility in Rathkeale, now operating at near capacity.

The list of new arrivals in Limerick in recent times speaks volumes. Companies like Uber, Northern Trust, ACI Worldwide, Virgin Media, Optel Vision, Ernst & Young, Ripplecom, Fazzi Healthcare Services, Stats, Ortec Inc and Teckro are now employing thousands of local people.

A new Tourism Development and Marketing Strategy 2017-2023 has been designed to double the number of visitors to Limerick, capture key opportunities for growth, and highlight priority action areas to

unlock the significant benefits that a thriving tourism industry can bring.

The renaissance has also been energised by the local authority’s determination to take advantage of digital technologies. Limerick is the first city in Ireland to appoint a chief digital officer to lead a digital strategy that will lay the foundation for the Smart Limerick Region. One manifestation of this is Limerick.ie, an award-winning platform that enables locals and visitors instant access to information on some 2,000 attractions and 1,000 events across the city and county each year. The digital strategy will enable vast real-time engagement across the Internet of Things, delivering huge environmental and security enhancements for all citizens.

The delivery on the plan’s ambitions after four short years has already seen the narrative about Limerick transformed. It is a city and county now recognised as a vibrant place to live, study, play and invest in, and the future looks bright.

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Informing you about the work of local authorities in supporting the business needs of their community...

To tell us what your local council is doing for business email joseph.oconnor@ashvillemediagroup.com

In Association with

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22/12/2017 11:40

IB PARTNER PROFILE KPMG

War for Talent A recent report from KPMG has listed the fight to recruit skilled staff as being the top concern for family business owners across Europe.

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recent KPMG report entitled ‘European Family Business Barometer’ has highlighted the ‘war for talent’ in recruiting skilled staff as the top concern for more than 1,100 family business owners across Europe, including in Ireland. These concerns are on the rise – flagged as an issue for 33 per cent in 2015, rising to 37 per cent in 2016 and now cited by 43 per cent of respondents in 2017 as their main concern, well ahead of issues such as changes in regulation (28 per cent) or access to finance (7 per cent).

Seventy-seven per cent of

respondents agreed that non-family members bring a level of expertise and benefits to a family business, signalling an increasing trend for family businesses to fill senior skills gaps with non-family members.

From an Irish perspective, the potential disruption of Brexit should lead more family businesses to consider whether they have the necessary expertise in-house to ensure business growth, or if external assistance is needed in areas such as research and innovation and the identification of new export markets.

The findings show more positive sentiment in relation to the economic outlook for family businesses in

Europe, with a significant majority (71 per cent) of those surveyed claiming that they are either ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ about their family business’s economic prospects for the next 12 months, despite increased competition and declining profitability continuing to present a challenging operating environment. Such positivity is underpinned by the fact that many plan to increase staffing levels over the coming year, a welcome signal that family businesses will play a key role in reducing falling unemployment rates across the EU, currently standing at 9 per cent.

Find out more at kpmg.ie

At the heart of business in Ireland

© 2017 KPMG, an Irish partnership

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22/12/2017 10:54

IB PARTNER PROFILE PAYPAL

Opportunity Hack As part of its commitment to giving back to the local community, PayPal’s Opportunity Hack saw teammates solving digital challenges for Irish charities.

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his year’s PayPal Opportunity Hack proved to be a huge success. The charity hackathon, which took place at the Castleknock Hotel in Dublin, brought together 30 PayPal teammates to create and develop digital resources and systems for Irish charities over a 24-hour period.

Led by Jonathan Davies, Manager of Small Business Integrations and Optimisations at PayPal, the teammates were drawn from various disciplines including coding, software development, customer support, risk and compliance. They were tasked with working with the charities to develop solutions for their most pressing digital needs.

A judging panel – which consisted of various members of the PayPal team including Maeve Dorman, Vice President of Merchant Operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Anthony Rafferty, Director of Merchant Services, as well as Guy Thompson, General Manager of the Castleknock Hotel and President of Fingal Dublin Chamber of Commerce – had the difficult task of choosing the best projects.

The team behind Chifundo, a charity dedicated to the education of some of the most underprivileged children in the villages of Zomba in Malawi, claimed the number one spot. The PayPal techies helped to create an online shop for the

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Pictured at PayPal’s Opportunity Hack were Guy Thompson, Fingal Chamber President and General Manager, Castleknock Hotel; Alison Pryce, PayPal; Kristina Fernandes, PayPal; Cian Delaney, PayPal; Francesca Placido, PayPal; and Anthony Cooney, CEO, Fingal Chamber

organisation to enable it to sell Malawi crafts brought back to Ireland by volunteers, the proceeds of which will be donated directly to the school.

Second place went to Pieta House which helps those in suicidal distress or engaging in self-harm. It was provided with an app allowing community centres to streamline the registration and payment system for its Darkness Into Light event, thus saving the charity 5,000 volunteer hours, allowing it to gather information on participants and eliminating the handling of over a1.5 million in cash.

Speaking about the hackathon, Maeve Dorman, said: “It is a tremendous event for all involved.

Not only do the charities benefit but PayPal teammates get a great sense of achievement out of applying their expertise to new challenges. Now in its second year, the Opportunity Hack 2.0 has made a significant impact already and helps to address important issues such as social inclusion, education and wellness.”

Kieran Brady, Director of Funding and Advocacy, Pieta House, said: “As

our flagship funding event, Darkness Into Light is the single biggest occasion that allows us to keep our doors open and continue to provide our life-saving service free of charge to people all over Ireland. The app created for us at PayPal’s Opportunity Hack 2.0 streamlines the registration and payment processes, saving us countless hours, and protects both staff and volunteers by reducing cash handling. We are extremely grateful to the PayPal team for lending us their time and expertise for this project.”

Guy Thompson, General Manager, Castleknock Hotel and President of Fingal Dublin Chamber of Commerce said: “Castleknock Hotel was honoured to be the partner hotel for PayPal’s Opportunity Hack 2.0 and the staff were delighted to host another hugely successful event.

“As President of the Fingal Dublin Chamber of Commerce, we strongly encourage CSR initiatives amongst our members and PayPal is leading the way, providing much needed expertise, support, enthusiasm and a genuine passion for helping the community.”

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 10:55

IB PARTNER PROFILE GLAS ÉIREANN SOLUTIONS

A Bundle of Energy Brian O’Callaghan and Cori Calvert of new energy services company Glas Éireann Solutions explain how their company can help your business save money on current and future energy bills.

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e all want to save money on our current and future energy bills, right? We all want to reduce our carbon footprint, right? Financially and morally, it is the correct thing to do, but what’s stopping us?

The two major obstacles are a lack of awareness and a lack of expendable capital. Glas Éireann Solutions (GES) addresses these concerns and more with our innovative business model, guaranteeing savings of up to 60 per cent off your energy bills after installation of various green energy solutions, without asking for any capital outlay.

Glas Éireann Solutions aims to increase business profitability,

allowing you to focus your time and resources on expansion and creating employment. We place a huge emphasis on education and customer service and we are determined to operate in a totally transparent manner.

OUR 5-STEP PROCESS • We Audit • We Design • We Finance • We Install • We Maintain YOU SAVE!

IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF InBUSINESS...

Win a full SEAI approved energy audit and business package worth €15,000 from Glas Éireann Solutions.

Because we guarantee the projected savings, we take a percentage from these savings for a short, contracted period.

After this period, all equipment and all savings are 100 per cent yours.

We are the only one-stop-shop on the market today in completing the whole project from start to finish, including initial audit, design and proposal, retrofit and installation, finance and maintenance. We are the only energy services company on the market offering a complete range of solutions, and we have also included maintenance in all our proposals, lessening the workload on our clients even further.

Availing of GES’s services will enable businesses to promote their green energy sustainability strategy, whilst also significantly lowering current energy overheads and future energy price risk exposure. GES will manage the complete programme from start to finish, utilising our innovative fivestep process.

It’s been an exciting and busy few months for GES. Following numerous customer solution-based interviews, we are already well into the design stage for a number of SME, industrial and hospitality clients. Not only has the business been welcomed by customers, but as a start-up we have been welcomed into the business community with open arms. We have been invited to numerous networking events, and have already received financial backing from the Local Enterprise Office in Limerick. We have also just moved into an office near the UL Campus, giving us access to the most up-todate research and development in the field, and have recently hired a Chief Technology Officer and VP of Sales.

To learn more visit www.GlasEireann.ie.

Brian O'Callaghan and Cori Calvert of Glas Éireann Solutions

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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22/12/2017 10:57

IB PARTNER PROFILE UDARAS NA GAELTACHTA

Good for Gaeltacht Business Údarás na Gaeltachta aims to promote the economic, social and cultural development of the Gaeltacht by nurturing new and existing businesses, developing modern enterprise infrastructure and enhancing the skills base of the Gaeltacht community.

InBUSINESS look at the various supports on offer.

THE TYPES OF ENTERPRISES IT ASSISTS: • Information Communication Technology (ICT) • Niche and modern manufacturing • Internationally traded services • Pharmaceutical and medical devices • Digital and audiovisual content • Food processing • Fish farming/processing • Cultural tourism • Arts and crafts • Community-based enterprises • Natural resources

TYPES OF SUPPORTS AVAILABLE: • Feasibility study grants are available to assess the viability of your business idea.

• Development of micro-enterprise scheme offers funding to eligible start-up businesses towards costs associated with capital expenditure.

• ‘Chéad Chéim’ Scheme (First Steps) provides funding towards initial start-up costs.

• Innovation Vouchers worth 55,000 to assist early stage companies to work with a registered college or knowledge provider to explore a business opportunity or solve a technical problem.

• Mentor Scheme provides support for a business mentor to assist in startup phase or advise on specific areas of your plan.

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS • Capital grant can be paid for initial investment in material and tangible assets, such as building, plant and

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machinery and assets created by the transfer of technology through the acquisition of patent rights, licences know-how or unpatented technical knowledge.

• Employment grant provides support towards the recruitment of new employees.

• Training grant provides assistance for training programmes that train or upskill employees.

• Share capital investment where Údarás can take an equity stake in small and medium enterprises in the start-up and expansion phases where this is of strategic importance to the development of the enterprise.

MARKETING AND EXPORT SUPPORTS • Market development supports the costs of researching and exploring new international business opportunities.

• Graduates 4 International Growth Programme matches graduates with companies to develop and execute plans to grow in key markets and provides support for the graduates’ salary and training.

• Research and Development and Innovation Grants support businesses in developing new markets, technologies, products, processes and strategic alliances to enhance their ability to perform in competitive markets.

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT SUPPORTS Mentor, Strategic Consultancy, Key Manager & Platform 4 Growth/

Leadership 4 Growth grants can be used to investigate the feasibility of developing a new product, process, technology or service offering; support the cost of planning or implementing a new strategic development initiative; and introduce key skills and expertise to the company’s senior management team and challenge SMEs to scale and grow their businesses.

PRODUCTIVITY AND BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT SUPPORTS Lean Start, Lean Plus and Lean Transform grants and Business Process Improvement grants provide support to companies to improve and increase performance and competitiveness, drive company efficiencies and business process improvements.

BUSINESS PREMISES Údarás has a diverse property portfolio dispersed throughout the Gaeltacht.

Properties are available at competitive rental rates and clients can benefit from flexible leasing arrangements.

They include enterprise, incubation and industrial type units and buildings, office accommodation and development sites.

HOW DO I APPLY? Through its network of regional offices, Údarás na Gaeltachta ensures that enterprises throughout the Gaeltacht areas have access to its assistance and support programmes.

Check out www.udaras.ie for further information.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 10:58

IB PARTNER PROFILE ROADBRIDGE

At the Heart of Infrastructure Founded in 1967 and with a host of successful projects under its belt, Limerick-based Roadbridge is a leader in civil engineering.

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oadbridge is one of the most respected names in the Irish and UK construction industry with 50 years’ experience in civil engineering works. The company’s head office is in Limerick, with regional offices in Glasgow, London and Cardiff.

In recent years, Roadbridge has operated throughout Ireland, the UK, Poland, New Caledonia, and the Middle East, but has retained Limerick as the heart of its organisation.

Throughout its 50 years of operation, Roadbridge has been responsible for some of Ireland’s largest infrastructural projects, so the heat in your home may well have come from a gas line installed by them. The electricity may be from a wind farm they constructed, and the water to your house may have come from a treatment plant the company built. You may even drive to work on a road delivered to you by Roadbridge.

Galway Wind Park

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Notable Roadbridge projects include the Limerick Tunnel, Galway Wind Park, Gas to Great Island Pipeline, Corrib Gas Terminal and Limerick Treatment Plant. Roadbridge has completed projects for both public authorities and private industrial clients including: Hewlett Packard, Pfizer, MSD, Wyeth Medica, Scottish Power Renewables, Grangegorman Development Agency, ESBI, Total E&P Ltd., Shell E&P Ltd, the Welsh Government, Transport Scotland, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), United Utilities, Gas Networks Ireland, SSE Renewables, Irish Water, Facebook and Center Parcs.

The main areas of civil engineering in which Roadbridge are involved are major earthworks and drainage, major highway construction, water infrastructure, wastewater infrastructure, gas pipelines, industrial developments, urban renewal, and leisure/amenity works.

Roadbridge is a self-performing contractor with the experience, capability and a proven track record in delivering major projects. With 700 permanent employees, the company also owns and operates one of the largest modern plant fleets in Ireland, giving unparalleled control over project delivery.

The company is very proud of its quality driven approach that ensures project delivery ahead of time and within budget. It has the expertise and resources to deliver the most challenging projects to the highest standards using its award-winning management systems.

M17/N18 Gort to Tuam Motorway

ROADBRIDGE’S COMMITMENTS Roadbridge understands its clients’ needs and makes the following commitments to them: •W e will deliver the highest quality level attainable on every element of works we undertake •W e will be on-time, responsive and prompt with every request and contract requirement •W e will provide fully qualified and technically capable staff •W e will authorise our on-site staff to independently solve problems and develop strategies to make the project more efficient and successful •W e will appropriately formulate key performance indicators and an on-site organisational structure to meet your needs •W e will make full use of our human, financial and technical resources to achieve performance objectives •W e will communicate frequently, professionally and effectively •W e will be fair and competitive in pricing and strive to provide the best value.

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22/12/2017 13:49

LIFESTYLE: motoring

JOIN THE ELECTRIC TRAIN Could Ireland be about to finally offer proper electric vehicle incentives?

Widespread adoption is key to tackling Ireland’s carbon emission targets and a range of measures are expected in 2018, including a €600 grant for home charging points in effect from January, extensions to the rapid public charging network, and reduced road tolls. Interesting times ahead – a lot more needs to be done to boost the appetite for EVs.

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FIRST: weden, apparently, is investigating the possibility of expanding its network of nuclear fallout shelters. The Scandinavians are worried about being in the firing line between North Korea and the US, with threats being bandied about like two schoolboys trading insults across the classroom, if those schoolboys had access to an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

These days, it seems like simply sitting into one of Volvo’s latest line-up would be just as effective for the Swedes – better, at least, than Ireland’s solution of chugging a few

VOLVO’S XC60 IS A TOUCH OF SCANDINAVIAN CLASS, WRITES CONOR FORREST.

iodine tablets and closing the curtains.

Take Volvo’s mid-size SUV, the XC60, which is much more than a scaled down version of the XC90 range-topper and one of a number of tremendous cars they’ve been making recently thanks to Chinese investment. Sit inside and you’re probably in one of the safest cars on the planet, amply equipped with park assist, reversing camera, cross traffic alert (which warns of traffic passing by if you’re reversing), a lane keeping aid, distance alert, not to mention a nifty head-up display, road sign information and adaptive cruise control. If there’s a car sitting in your blindspot you’ll be alerted via a red warning light in your wing mirrors. And for long, boring journeys InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 14:00

LIFESTYLE: motoring

VOLVO XC60 D4 MOMENTUM

“THE XC60 IS A CAR FOR DRIVERS WHO HAVE GRADUATED BEYOND THE CONFINES OF THE CROSSOVER, WHO WANT SOMETHING WITH A BIT MORE POWER, RIDE HEIGHT, COMFORT AND SAFETY.”

along the motorway there’s Pilot Assist, Volvo’s innocuously named take on semi-autonomous driving that basically combines adaptive cruise control with lane assist to keep you on the straight and narrow with minimal driver input. While it probably won’t improve your chances of surviving a direct missile hit, it’ll at least try to avoid it.

The XC60 is a car for drivers who have graduated beyond the confines of the crossover, who want something with a bit more power, ride height, comfort and safety. On the road, it drives more like a car than an SUV, equipped as it is with deft and responsive InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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BHP: 190 0-100KM/H: 7.2 seconds FUEL EFFICIENCY: 7L/100km (40mpg) CO2 EMISSIONS: 136g/km ANNUAL TAX: €280 PRICE: €60,045 including extras (range starts at €53,950)

steering, a great turning circle, plenty of traction and very little body roll. It’s comfortable too, the changeable suspension soaking up the punishment on a variety of surfaces from potholes and speed bumps to railway tracks and back roads without a complaint.

My test model featured the 2.0L D4 diesel engine with plenty of poke and averaging around 7L/100km (40mpg). The 232hp D5 version offers more power and less fuel economy, while the plug-in petrol hybrid T8 with 407hp offers an environmentally friendly choice.

The automatic gearbox is simply divine, whirring through the gears

without so much as a slight jolt.

As is the interior. Volvo’s reputation for interior quality shines through the XC60’s cabin, a combination of comfortable, trendy leather, brushed aluminium and soft-touch materials throughout, though the doors in my Momentum model were a tad plasticky. There is plenty of head and legroom, lots of space for three adults in the back row, and decent sized door bins, central compartment and glovebox.

There’s a solid, well-made feel, sleek and modern but minimalist – everything you might expect from a Swedish mind. Everything is well laid out for the driver, the multifunction steering wheel is comfortable and easy on the eye, and there’s good visibility too – the XC60 doesn’t feel like a tall car but once you’re inside you really feel a step above the surrounding traffic.

And there’s plenty of gadgets. The fabulous and user-friendly media centre sits head and shoulders above the competition, with virtually everything controlled via the touchscreen. The sat nav works wonderfully, the sound system is aural pleasure, the seats are luxurious (and feature aluminium crumple zones should you have an accident) and while the mechanically operated boot isn’t revolutionary, it is quite useful on a wet day with two armfuls of shopping. There’s even a 230V outlet accessible from the back should you require a shave on the go.

Pricing for the bog standard XC60 (Momentum) begins at €51,950, accompanied by an impressive standard list that includes cruise control, hill start assist, the power operated tailgate, rear park assist, heated front seats and sat nav. That stacks up well against its main rivals – a little more than the Audi Q5 and undercutting the BMW X3, both good options in their own right. The old XC60 was a family favourite and, if I had the choice, given the comfort, design and sheer quality on offer, I’d have the new one in a heartbeat.

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LIFESTYLE: motoring

THE HARD SHOULDER SENNA REBORN Placed firmly in the category of ‘Cars I Dream About But Will Likely Never Drive’, McLaren has unveiled the Senna, described as the ultimate road-legal track car and named after the legendary Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna. The Senna is a hypercar, a term reserved for the ultimate in motoring madness. It’s also the lightest McLaren since the F1, features a 4.0L twin-turbocharged V8 producing 789bhp, does 0-100km/h in 2.8 seconds, with a price tag of £750,000 (850,400). Sold out within days, you’ll have to try and nab one second-hand.

ELECTRIC TRUCKING The electric show is well and truly on the road. Elon Musk, the man trying to take humanity to other planets, has unveiled the Tesla Semi, an electric truck that is said to be capable of hauling loads of up to 36 tonnes and features some nifty technology including Enhanced Autopilot, onboard sensors that prevent jackknifing, and the ability to drive in an autonomous convoy. Range clocks in at about 500 miles (804km) and Tesla claims that a 30-minute charge will provide roughly 400 miles (643km) of electric-powered trucking. The Semi, due to enter production in 2019, will do 0-100km/h in 20 seconds with a full load, and five seconds without a trailer attached. Good money would be paid to see that drag race.

DESIGN pel, it seems, has rediscovered its mojo. The Astra is a much sharper and stylish option these days, and the brand’s flagship Insignia has also been away for some surgery in a bid to attract the premium-minded consumer.

These days it’s known as the Insignia Grand Sport, a grander title to match its grander aspirations and increased presence. The car itself is bigger too thanks to a new platform, having been lengthened by 55mm, lowered 29mm and widened by 7mm – the result is increased leg room and a sportier stance.

Although it’s quite big, the Insignia handles well. The steering is sharper and more responsive, there’s plenty of grip on tap, and body roll has been reduced compared to previous versions. Under the hood of my test model was Opel’s 2.0L

OPEL’S LATEST TAKE ON THE INSIGNIA HAS RESULTED IN IMPROVEMENTS ACROSS THE BOARD. CONOR FORREST TOOK IT FOR A SPIN.

OPEL INSIGNIA GRAND SPORT ELITE ENGINE: 2.0L Turbo D BHP: 170 0-100KM/H: 8.9 seconds TOP SPEED: 226KM/H CO2 EMISSIONS: 136g/km ANNUAL TAX: €280 PRICE: €46,985 (€36,095 excl. options)

IF GURE THIS

THE NUMBER OF NEW CARS REGISTERED IN IRELAND TO NOVEMBER 2017.

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InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 14:01

LIFESTYLE: motoring

CONOR’S TOP TIPS ON...

WINTER DRIVING

ON THE ROAD

TYRE CHECK

BLACK ICE

Steer, accelerate and brake smoothly (no matter how slow the car in front is going).

Tread depth should be at least 1.6mm and ideally more.

Watch out for areas shaded from the sun by trees, walls or other obstacles.

turbocharged diesel offering, a rumbly but more refined block that produces 170hp and 400Nm torque, paired to a six-speed manual gearbox that was a little too sticky for comfort.

Performance is steady throughout the rev range, with decent pulling power in higher gears. Over the course of a week, I averaged 6.5L/100km, though the 1.6L diesel version with 136bhp will likely prove a more popular option for Irish drivers. Fear not, petrolheads – there’s a 1.5L block with 140bhp and decent fuel consumption on offer.

My main takeaway from the Insignia is a feeling of comfort in virtually every aspect. The suspension is fantastic, and the Insignia simply floats along the road, soaking up the punishment without any fuss, aided

by Opel’s FlexRide Adaptive Chassis (a €1,300 extra).

It’s fantastically comfortable inside too.

The cabin has been upgraded with the driver and proper quality in mind; the materials are sturdy, everything is integrated nicely within the dashboard, the majority of the once-scattered controls have been digitised, and you’re well-insulated from the world outside. The seats can be manipulated almost every way you can think of, and

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there’s plenty of head and leg room front and back, rivalling the Skoda Superb. Visibility is good and boot space clocks in at 490L. It’s also well-equipped. Keyless entry, cruise control, a 7-inch touchscreen, front camera system and a multi-function steering wheel all come as standard on the entry-level model. Opt for the mid-spec SRi version and you’ll add rain-sensitive wipers, European sat nav, a bigger touchscreen, tinted rear windows and more. OnStar (also standard) is a gem that some consumers mightn’t consider – 24/7 assistance from an actual human being who can provide directions, dispatch roadside assistance or find your stolen car, free for the first year. The five-star rating from Euro NCAP is another comfort.

Pricing for the base model starts from €27,350, which is less than the comparable Ford Mondeo, Skoda Superb or even the Volkswagen Passat. The mid-range SRi is available from €29,350, with plenty of bang for your buck. Although it doesn’t look too different to the previous version, the new platform, increased space and better driving experience means that Opel should be on to a winner for those remaining family drivers who aren’t in the market for a crossover.

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LIFESTYLE: innovation

INNOVATION NATION

InBUSINESS looks at the latest innovations and technologies that are shaping our future.

In this issue: robots.

SONY aibo aibo, the latest edition of Sony’s autonomous robot canine, is capable of detecting obstacles, bumps and people and has voice-recognition capabilities, so it can respond to its owner’s voice. Its personality and behaviour varies depending on how its owner raises it, and it can connect to the internet to access Sony’s AI cloud in order to evaluate what it sees and hears, as well as learning from the behaviours of other aibo robot dogs connected to the cloud. www.aibo.sony.jp/en

Commuters who daydream on the train, tram or bus can soon relax as GOOGLE MAPS is set to add a feature which will send a push notification when you’re approaching your stop.

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LIFESTYLE: innovation

Professor Conor McGinn, Trinity College Dublin

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN ‘STEVIE’ SPHERO BB-9E To coincide with new film Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Sphero has released another Star Wars-themed robot in the form of BB-9E. sphero.com starwars/bb9e

Digital currency BITCOIN has moved another step towards mainstream investing with it now trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange financial futures market.

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Robotics engineers from Trinity College have unveiled the first prototype robot designed to help the elderly and people living with disability in Ireland. Stevie, the care-giving robot, has human-like features and performs autonomous and human-controlled tasks. It will initially be charged with performing routine tasks in nursing homes and assisted care facilities. Definitely one to watch. www.tcd.ie/mecheng/research/robotics/projects/stevie.php

According to reports, SAMSUNG’S first smart speaker is set to arrive in early 2018 and will reportedly be released in multiple markets around the world.

SNAP has released its second official app, Lens Studio, a design app for Mac and Windows desktop computers which resembles the internal tools Snap uses to build lenses in Snapchat.

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LIFESTYLE: travel

MOROCCO’S MOST POPULAR CITY OFFERS A BIZZARE MIX OF OLD AND NEW, AND IS SOMETIMES OVERWHELMING, BUT IS A DESTINATION THAT CANNOT BE IGNORED, WRITES ELISHA COLLIER O’BRIEN.

he city of Marrakesh was made for the curious at heart. Attacking the senses at every turn, Morocco’s cultural capital is the ideal place in which to wander, explore and simply get lost.

When first exploring, curiosity will undoubtedly lead you into the maze of the Medina, the old fortified part of the city where streets are narrow and free from

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cars, but bustling with people and activity. It’s hectic, noisy, and sometimes scary, but it is by far the most interesting and authentic area of Marrakesh to explore.

If you manage to emerge from the Medina unscathed, at the heart of this part of the city lies Jemaa el Fna, a huge marketplace that kicks off in the evening and lasts well into the night. From fresh fruit juice vendors to snake charmers, Jma el Fna has it all. Be warned, it’s not a place for the fainthearted – you’ll most likely be offered hashish on more than one occasion and followed around for the best part of an hour if the seller sees a glint of interest. The square itself is made up of established stalls in the centre with more ad hoc wheeler dealer types loitering around the

edges. For entertainment, on the outskirts of the square you’ll find large circles of men dancing to traditional music late into the night.

Staying in a riad within the Medina is a great way to experience the city and its culture. These traditional Moroccan dwellings comprise a number of rooms facing inward on to a courtyard, and make for a quiet escape from the chaos of the city outside. Upon entering, the thick walls immediately take you away from the hustle and bustle of the city into a place of sanctuary.

Spending an evening on the roof to watch the sunset is something quite magical. As the orange sky fills with the sounds of the Maghrib call to prayer ringing out from mosques, you get a sense that the city below is finally beginning to slow down.

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22/12/2017 13:50

LIFESTYLE: travel

WHERE TO Yves Saint Laurent was one of Marrakesh’s most famous European inhabitants, and he has said of Marrakesh, “this city taught me colour”.

MEET...

Radisson Blu Marrakech The Radisson Blu hotel is located in the city centre, about a ten-minute walk from the Medina. For those meeting clients, it has an excellent range of meeting rooms and conference facilities to choose from. www.radissonblu.com/en/ hotel-marrakech

EAT...

Le Jardin This restaurant is magical in the evenings when its courtyard is lit up with candles. The food is local and mostly features tagines. The restaurant sometimes hosts live music, which makes it popular, so be sure to book ahead. www.lejardinmarrakech.com

SLEEP...

Shop Till You Drop Not an easy find but well worth getting lost for is the leather goods quarter of the Medina. In tiny spaces opening onto the street, you can observe craftsmen at work; some dyeing fresh hides, others putting the finishing touches to stylish leather jackets, bags or belts. It’s a fascinating area offering great bargains and haggling is par for the course. Here, you should be aiming for reductions of 30 to 50 per cent on the original price quoted.

Other well-priced goods that are handcrafted in the city include silverware – InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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GETTING THERE

BY AIR: Ryanair offers direct flights from Dublin to Marrakesh for part of the year, with the next service beginning in March 2018.

There are also a wide range of options via London if you are happy to stop over.

particularly candleholders – lamps, wool rugs and cushions that come in a wide array of patterns and designs. Wooden boxes inlaid with mother of pearl, woven straw goods such as baskets and bags, and jewellery of all sorts, from silver to precious stones, are also popular purchases for tourists.

If you’re looking to escape the city for the day, the Atlas mountains and Ourika Valley can be reached by car in just an hour and a half. This is a beautiful mountainous region where you can take guided hikes for a half day or more, and enjoy

Riad Cinnamon

There is an abundance of independently owned riads in the medina, which are open as luxurious boutique hotels. Riad Cinnamon stands out as one of the best of them. www.riadcinnamon.com

SEE...

Ben Youssef Madrasa Founded in the 14th century, this Islamic college is filled with ornate mosaics, splendid archways and a beautiful courtyard. The building, which dates back to 1570, became a museum open to the public in 1960.

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KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

LANGUAGE While Arabic is the official language of Morocco, most merchants and taxi drivers will speak French. Having the basics generally gets you further than you would with English in shops, markets and restaurants.

HISTORY Marrakesh was founded in 1070 and has seen many different eras and rulers since then. From Berbers to Arabs to French, the city has a fascinating social and cultural history involving many different tribes and faiths.

ALCOHOL While alcohol will not be found in most shops and restaurants, with a little bit of research and by asking the right local, a bottle of Casablanca beer won’t be too far away.

TAXIS Taxis in Marrakesh have a habit of overcharging tourists.

Before getting in one, it’s best to agree a price. Don’t be afraid to haggle!

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Jardin Majorelle A snake charmer at Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech A selection of herbs and dry flowers on a traditional soukin in Marrakesh

Morrocan tagines

mint tea in wooden cafés located at great heights.

The village of Setti Fatma is well worth a visit. It sits in a valley surrounded by mountains and located along the edges of the Ourika river. The village restaurants, which offer a kaleidoscope of coloured couches and chairs within arm’s-reach of the water, are an idyllic place to enjoy dinner after a day of hiking.

Back in the city, if rest and relaxation are in order, you can avail of a hammam. These public bathing houses form part of most Moroccans’ weekly hygiene regime.

It begins with bathers entering a sauna, followed by an even hotter room, before washing off in cold water.

Bathers are then given a serious scrub down by hammam staff, followed by a full body oil massage before retreating back into a cool down room. Be prepared to strip down to nothing as a stranger proceeds

to scrub rough sand all over your body. If you can handle that, then you’ll have softer and smoother skin for weeks!

City of Colours Yves Saint Laurent was one of Marrakesh’s most famous European inhabitants, and he once said of it, “this city taught me colour”. On the street named after him, Rue Yves Saint Laurent, lies the Jardin Majorelle, a beautiful walled garden filled with rare and exotic plants and flowers, created by the French artist Jacques Majorelle in 1923, and subsequently bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé. The garden currently hosts a wonderful historic exhibition featuring traditional Morrocan garments and jewellery, as well as intricate craftsmanship from Morrocan tribes throughout the centuries.

Recently opened on the same street is the Musée

Yves Saint Laurent, which showcases the work of the designer and includes magnificent displays of collections spanning his career.

Marrakesh has much to offer art lovers too and there is plenty to see in the Matisse Gallery or the modern art David Bloch Gallery. For photography fans or those interested in the history of the city, the Photography Museum of Marrakesh and the Lazama Synagogue offer wonderful visual insights into Marrakesh and its people.

From dark, narrow alleyways to elaborate tilework and architecture; speeding scooters juxtaposed with donkeys and carts, Marrakesh truly offers a bizarre mix of the old and new.

Admittedly, the city is at times overwhelming, but with exceptionally friendly inhabitants and a culture so rich, it’s a destination that cannot be ignored.

See for yourself.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 13:51

LIFESTYLE: books

BOOKS ON

IRELAND INC: A History of Irish Business

InBUSINESS looks at the latest business books offering great insights for executives, budding entrepreneurs, and other professionals seeking to acquire business skills and knowledge.

BREXIT AND IRELAND: The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response

D

rawing on over 16 years in reporting on European affairs for RTÉ, Brussels-based journalist Tony Connelly takes on possibly the single greatest economic and foreign policy challenge to the Irish state since the Second World War – Brexit. With access to insiders in Dublin, London, Belfast and Brussels, Brexit and Ireland tells the dramatic untold story of the Irish response to this political and economic earthquake. The book is chock-full of insights about how the EU actually works, with lots of colourful and revealing stories from within the corridors of power. Connelly talks to the business leaders, farmers and entrepreneurs on the frontline of the crisis, and traces the various ways in which Brexit is likely to change Irish lives. Brexit and Ireland is an entertaining and revealing account of the ever-developing drama of Brexit, and is a must-read for anyone concerned about Ireland’s future.

AUTHOR: Tony Connelly PUBLISHER: Penguin Ireland RRP: 12.74 AVAILABLE: easons.com

YOUR TRAVEL COMPANION

The Spider’s House

AUTHOR: Paul Bowles PUBLISHER: Penguin Classics AVAILABLE: bookdepository.com

Set in Fez, Morocco, during the country’s 1954 nationalist uprising, The Spider’s House is richly descriptive of its setting and is yet beautifully subtle. Exploring the dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures - recurrent themes of author Paul Bowles’s writings - The Spider’s House is a dramatic tale which remains relevant to today’s political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

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“Deciding to become a company director is a step that should be considered carefully.”

AUTHOR: David W. Duffy PUBLISHER: Chartered Accountants Ireland

Ireland Inc: A History of Irish Business is the outcome AUTHOR: Various of nearly four PUBLISHER: years of research, Ink Publishing interviews and RRP: writing by a range 40 of business AVAILABLE: journalists. The businessand finance.com resulting book is a chronology of Irish business which explores how policy, initiative and hard work have combined to create today’s diverse Irish business landscape.

Presented in three parts, part one of the book examines the dominant themes of the past 60 years in a series of essays, with the second part presenting an opportunity to hear from some of the business community’s most impactful figures, and the third offering mainly exclusive interviews from the archives of Business & Finance magazine.

An invaluable resource for those who need to know about what it means to be an effective company director in Ireland, A Practical Guide for Company Directors covers topics from company law, regulatory environment and corporate governance guidance, to conflicts of interest, risk management and financial matters. Written in a clear, logical manner, the book acts as an authoritative reference for directors and potential directors who want to understand their corporate responsibilities.

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22/12/2017 11:30

THE InBUSINESS INDEX

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1ST - SWITZERLAND Switzerland is ranked top overall by virtue of its strong performance across all six pillars of the GTCI model. The country performs consistently well across the Enable (2nd), Retain (1st), and Vocational and Technical Skills (3rd) pillars and their constituent sub-pillars. Performance in the Attract pillar (5th) is strong, with the country showing an excellent capacity to attract and retain global talent.

12TH - IRELAND Ranking 12th overall, Ireland is a top ten country in the Enable (10th) and Attract (9th) pillars. This is reflected in its leading position in FDI and technology transfer and its ability to attract foreign talent (8th in Brain Gain). In the Grow pillar, Ireland is a top performer in lifelong learning (5th) but still has room to improve in formal education (31st) and in retaining its domestic talent (20th).

52ND - THE PHILIPPINES The Philippines (52nd) is the top-ranked lower-middle income country, ranking above several upper-middle-income countries such as China (54th) and the Russian Federation (56th), and even above some high-income countries such as Kuwait (57th) and Oman (59th). Its greatest strength is its pool of both vocational and technical skills (43rd) and global knowledge skills (40th).

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ABOUT THE GLOBAL TALENT COMPETITIVENESS INDEX Launched for the first time in 2013, the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) is an annual benchmarking report that measures the ability of 118 countries based on their ability to grow, attract and retain talent. The GTCI demonstrates that talent competitiveness is highest where there are strong ecosystems due to factors such as financial independence and strong links between key stakeholders in business and government.

To view the full report, visit www.gtci2017.com.

InBUSINESS | Q4 2017

22/12/2017 11:31

THE ALL-NEW ŠKODA KAROQ. ANOTHER WAY TO DO RUSH HOUR. From €27,715

Following the success of the 7-seater KODIAQ, ŠKODA introduces the KAROQ. The spacious 5-seater SUV combines comfort, style and cuttingedge technology. The KAROQ includes touch screen sound systems, 17” alloy wheels, cruise and climate control, plus rear parking sensors as standard.

Powered by an excellent range of familiar ŠKODA Diesel engines as well as new efficient 1.0 TSI and 1.5 TSI petrol options, there is no shortage of choice.

Live life another way with the ŠKODA KAROQ. Available in showrooms from December 1st from just €319 per month.

skoda.ie * Typical Example: KAROQ 1.0 TSI 115hp Ambition OTRP €28,315. Deposit €8,423. 36 monthly payments of €319 including service plan of €12.99 per month. Optional final Payment €10,532. APR 3.9%.

Total cost of credit €1,806. Minimum deposit is 10%. Subject to lending criteria. This offer is made under a hire purchase agreement. ŠKODA Finance is a trading style of VW Bank GmbH Branch Ireland, authorised by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority in Germany and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland for conduct of business rules. Prices and offer valid until December 31st 2017. Model shown is the KAROQ style 1.0 TSI 115hp. Price excludes delivery and related charges. CO2 from 114-138g/km. Combined fuel consumption from 4.3-5.5 l/100km.

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20/12/2017 23/11/2017 16:43 11:18 17/11/2017 11:02

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19/12/2017 12/12/2017 10:03 16:31