The chief executive of airport operator DAA, Kenny Jacobs, would receive a settlement in the region of €1 million under proposals that would see him leave the role. A mediation process involving lawyers representing Mr Jacobs and the board of DAA has intensified.
Staying with aviation, Minister for Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien will send a memo to Cabinet next month to begin the process of drafting legislation that will remove Dublin Airport’s 32 million a year passenger cap.
It’s long been referred to as the “pensions time bomb”, and new research this morning shows more than one in four Irish adults have no financial plans for their retirement while the number without a private pension has increased significantly since last year.
The study from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission also points to high levels of regret among those with pensions that they did not begin paying into them sooner.
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Meanwhile, some employees have been left feeling “entitled” to remote and hybrid working in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Síobhra Rush, head of employment law firm Lewis Silkin’s Dublin office.
“The remote work, or hybrid working arrangements that came about as a result of Covid, they now see that as an entitlement, which it isn’t,” she says, noting the issue has led to “a lot of contention”.
Another issue in the workplace is the gender pay gap, which FT columnist Pilita Clark runs her off over in her column this week.
“One reason for the pay gap is that men do a better job of snagging top roles,” she writes. “And the research shows that their relative overconfidence explains as much as 11 per cent of this type of gender gap.”
Elsewhere, more than half of local authorities must at least double their housing output if they are to meet new Government targets set out in the revised National Planning Framework, according to Ireland’s largest estate agent, Sherry FitzGerald.
The Government issued new guidelines to local authorities in July setting out the housing requirements demanded of each to meet the targets, which collectively plan for about 55,000 new homes annually on average between now and 2034.
Staying with housing, sale prices for Irish homes continued their upward trajectory in the first six months of the year, with an overall increase of 5.05 per cent in the period, a half percentage point ahead of the 4.55 per cent increase in the previous six months.
In Q&A, Dominic Coyle responds to a couple coming up to the end of the term on their interest only mortgage.
“The bottom line is that you have a €90,000 bill looming and some tough choices. Failure to repay or put some other funding in place could see you lose your home,” he says.
The EU-Mercosur trade deal is on the agenda for John Fitzgerald in his column this week. He says the current political climate makes it essential for Europe, and especially for Ireland, to forge deeper trading arrangements with reliable partners across the rest of the world.
“My first job was selling ice cream at the funfair,” singer/songwriter Leslie Dowdall tells Me and My Money. “I earned so little I honestly can’t remember the exact amount, but I do remember coming home covered in 99s and thinking I was rich.”
In week’s Opinion slot, solicitor Mike Stack argues that a radical overhaul of Ireland’s conveyancing system is long overdue. It can currently take as long as six months or more for a house buyer to get the keys in their hands after deciding to buy a home.
Finally, Elon Musk briefly lost the crown of world’s richest man to Larry Ellison. His consolation prize comes in the form of a Tesla pay package that would make the distinction almost irrelevant. Stocktake reports.
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