ÚDARÁS AIMS TO REPLACE MORTGAGE JOBS - 108 jobs are being lost at Scottish mortgage company, Contact 4, which had bases in Gweedore, Achill and Dingle.
Pádraig Ó hAoláin, chief executive of Údarás Na Gaeltachta, said the company was a casualty of the sub-prime lending crisis which has affected its main UK market.
Mr Ó hAoláin said the company had received around €3m of State aid, but Údarás had a charge on the company's assets and guarantees from its parent company. He said the big concern now was to provide alternative employment for those who had lost their jobs.
He said he was reasonably optimistic about the Gweedore area, as talks on a number of projects were well advanced.
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PUT MORE IN PENSIONS POT CALL - For the first time, more Irish people in the private sector are members of defined contribution pension schemes than defined benefit schemes.
With defined benefit, employees are assured of a pension at retirement equal to a certain proportion of their final salary, often two thirds. In the case of a defined contribution scheme the risk rests with the employee.
Patrick Burke, chairman of the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) said a 25-year-old starting today, saving the average combined employer and employee contribution of 10% of salary a month, would need to continue working until age 75 to secure a pension on retirement of 50% of salary.
He said there should be no hard rule about retirement dates, but people needed to save more if they wanted to retire earlier.
Mr Burke said people on defined contribution schemes were starting at 5% to 8% of their salary. He said employers' and workers' contribution levels were rising, but that this trend needed to continue.
A Government Green Paper is looking at a number of different options for the pension system. Mr Burke said he favoured an SSIA-style system to encourage pensions, as many people did not understand current tax relief for pensions.
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OIL STILL BUBBLING NEAR RECORDS - World oil prices traded near fresh record levels in Asia this morning as speculators piled into the market following a sharp decline in the US dollar.
US crude was 21 cents higher at $102.80 a barrel, having surged almost $3 yesterday, when it touched a record $102.97. Brent North Sea crude was seven cents higher at $100.97, compared with its record of $101.27 hit yesterday.
