WIND POWER FOR OIL COUNTRY - Airtricity is building a transmission network to carry wind power in Texas. Its an 800 mile project in the heart of oil country. One of the other investors in the project is Babcock and Brown which now owns Eircom.
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NEW BROADBAND PROJECT - Later today a new project will be unveiled to provide high speed broadband to economically disadvantaged communities in Donegal. It will also target Derry and Tyrone. The project is being backed by the Irish Government, Derry city and Donegal County Council.
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JOBS NEWS - A distrubutor of chilled and frozen foods is to close at the end of the month with the loss of 350 jobs. Whelan Frozen Foods has been storing and distrubuting food for Dunnes Stores for 26 years. The firm's only client was Dunnes but the supermarket group has moved the contract to other suppliers.
On the positive side 300 jobs are set to be created by international software company VMware in Cork. Full details will be announced later this month.
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SUPERQUINN BUYS MONTROSE - The number of large hotels on the south side of Dublin city continues to decline with news that the owners of Superquinn have bought the Montrose Hotel opposite UCD in Stillorgan. The hotel had been underperforming and was put up for sale by Jurys Doyle group. The €40m deal comes after the company decided to put the Burlington on the market. It has already sold Jurys in Ballsbridge and the Berkley Court to property developer Sean Dunne.
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CONSUMERS IN THE DARK - Eight hundred people were interviewed recently about the price of milk, tea and butter and not one could say what price these common items were. A conference hosted by independent Retail group RDDATA today will hear how most consumers are in the dark on issues like the price of milk.
Colin Gordon, the chief executive of consumers foods at food group Glanbia, said that consumers were also relatively unaware in terms of the nutritional content of the food they eat. He said it was alarming that people were in the dark on nutritional issues, despite a lot of campaigns to combat obesity.
Gordon also said that most consumers did not understand environmental concepts like 'food miles' and 'carbon footprints'.
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ESB WOULD CONSIDER NUCLEAR POWER - One interesting story over the weekend was the news that ESB would consider joining forces with a nuclear power producer. The company's chairman Tadhg O'Donoghue said the group was interested in all opportunities to produce power by all legal means. While the Government opposes nuclear power, O'Donoghue said realistically that would have to change. But he stressed that the company was neutral on the issue and said the decision was one for the Government. Ireland already imports a small amount of nuclear power through an interconnector pipe with Britain.
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CURRENCIES - This morning the euro is worth $1.31 and £0.67.
