UK AIRPORT MOVE 'GOOD FOR CONSUMERS' - An eagerly anticipated report from Britain's competition authorities has proposed the break-up of the company which owns many of the country's biggest airports.
The Competition Commission has proposed that BAA cease running two of its three London airports - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. It has also recommended that BAA lose control of either Edinburgh or Glasgow airport.
Ryanair has long called for such a break-up. Aer Lingus's commercial director Enda Corneille said anything that fostered real competition among airports should result in lower costs for airlines, which would ultimately be very good news for consumers. He said Aer Lingus would be keeping an eye on developments to see if competition was 'real'.
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FLOOD OF PROPERTIES DRAGS RENTS DOWN - Daft.ie has been analysing the price and variety of rental properties it has been advertising over the last number of months. Unsurprisingly, it finds that more properties are becoming available because owners can't sell at the price they would like. Rents in the big cities are showing signs of falling and further reductions are to be expected.
Daft.ie economist Ronan Lyons said the fall in rents was good news for students. He said there were a large number of rental properties coming on the market. Last year, the figure was around 7,000 or 8,000 a month, but this had doubled.
Mr Lyons said rents had fallen by 1.8% over the past 12 months - the first annual fall in four years. He urged students to do some research look at the figures for each area.
The economist said Dublin city centre rents had fallen by as much as 6% in the past three months, though they had risen strongly in previous months. In other big cities, rents were static or down by as much as 5% over the last year.
Mr Lyons said property owners had flooded the rental market as they could not sell houses, and he expected rents to continue falling for some months to come.
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OIL AND CURRENCIES - World oil prices rose in Asia overnight due to fresh supply concerns after key producer Venezuela indicated that it could ask OPEC to cut output. US crude rose 56 cents to $115.09 a barrel.
The euro is worth $1.4730 and 79.18p sterling.
