CHARTED ACCOUNTANTS VOLUNTARY ADVICE SERVICES GOES NATIONWIDE - The Chartered Accountants of Ireland operate a registered charity called the Chartered Accountants Voluntary Advice Service. It had been operating mainly in Leinster and parts of the west, but this morning it goes nationwide.
Chartered Accountant at PWC, Orla Fisher, is one of the 150 volunteers who staff the service. Orla Fisher says that the service is aimed at individuals who find their business in distress, especially sole traders who have been in business for many years, and who find they need advice on their accounts and cash flow. The service was started in 2007 and helps people make accurate decisions about where their business is going and whether it is still actually viable. She says there is very little dishonesty among the people seeking the service and the accountants can establish very quickly whether a person in genuinely in trouble and can't afford the services of an accountant. The service is available through MABS and the Citizen Information Service and Ms Fisher says that a huge volume of people are seeking advice.
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SMART FUTURE CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHTS CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN TECH SECTOR - The deadline for submitting CAO forms is February 1, but all this week executives of some of the best known technology companies operating in Ireland are hosting online chats with prospective undergraduates from 6pm until 8pm tonight and every night this week up to Thursday evening.
Paul Sweetman, director of technology sector representative group ICT Ireland, is one of the agencies organising the event. He says the Smart Future Campaign is an effort to raise awareness of the career opportunities in information and communications technology among second level students. Among the companies taking part are Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Cisco and also indigenous Irish tech companies like Openet. Mr Sweetman says there is a growing demand for new employees in the ICT sector and points out that 4,000 new jobs were created in the sector last year. 275 have already been created so far this year. Students can find out more at smartfutures.ie/chat.
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MORNING BRIEFS - To lose one chief executive may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose both looks like carelessness, but this appears to be the case in RIM as the co-chief executives of troubled Blackberry-maker Research in Motion have stepped down. Chief operating officer Thorsten Heins is to replace Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who co-founded the company in 1984. Mr Lazaridis will become vice chairman, while Mr Balsillie will continue to sit on the board but not have any operational role.The Canadian company has suffered a series of setbacks and has lost tens of billions of dollars in market value. Worth more than $70 billion a few years ago, it now has a market value of $8.9 billion.
*** Údarás na Gaeltachta has reported a net loss of 104 jobs on the year. It gained 734 new jobs but more than that were lost last year.
*** The Irish Stock Exchange is one stock shorter today. It will open without Greencore this morning, which from today takes its main listing to London...
*** On the currency markets, the euro is worth $1.2891 and 82 .9 pence sterling.
