€30 A WEEK PER CHILD FOR PARENTS RETURNING TO WORK - The Government is planning to introduce a “return- to-work dividend” in next month’s budget, aimed at improving incomes for families who move from welfare to work, writes the Irish Times. The social welfare system has long been criticised for so-called poverty traps, which result in families losing out if a parent takes up work. Under changes being drawn up by Tánaiste Joan Burton and officials, a parent who takes a low-paid job would be able to keep welfare payments - known as qualified child increases - worth up to €30 per child a week. Those who qualify would be entitled to hold on to the payment for up to three years, although it would reduce gradually over this time. “In order to make work pay, we know that the biggest difficulties are experienced by those with children,” Ms Burton told the newspaper. “This will provide a significant additional financial incentive for these families, particularly if a parent is heading into an entry-level job.” Ms Burton said details were still being worked on, but had the support of Fine Gael. “We haven’t signed off completely on this, but it’s a proposal that we’re very confident about.”
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WETHERSPOON WILL POUR €100m INTO IRISH PUB NETWORK - JD Wetherspoon will plough €100m into developing its network of Irish pubs, chief executive Tim Martin has revealed. In an interview with the Irish Independent, the Belfast-born multimillionaire said his British pub chain was pouring money into Ireland. Mr Martin said designs overhauls of around €1.5m, along the lines of what has just been completed at its Blackrock, Co Dublin outlet, will be completed on each of the 30 pubs it plans to open in the Republic. Having already bought three pubs in Dublin and two in Cork, his company is now looking at sites in Galway, Mr Martin added. "We are putting a lot of money into the country" Mr Martin said. "But the speed at which we can open these 30 pubs depends on how Irish customers respond to us". On Friday the pub chain posted a 3% rise in full-year profit and said it expected a "reasonable" outcome for 2014. Menu improvements and longer opening hours helped bump up revenue by 10% to £1.4 billion. Wetherspoon, which has 900 pubs across the UK, revealed its Irish intentions last year to a mixed response. Some criticised the plans, arguing that the chain does not fit with Ireland's reputation for independent, high quality pubs.
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CLAIMS FIRM TO CREATE 40 JOBS WITH HEADQUARTERS - Leading UK claims company, Stanton Fisher is looking to treble its Irish workforce via the opening of a new Irish headquarters, which will see the creation of 40 new jobs, initially. Last month, Stanton Fisher urged the Government to introduce new laws to ensure banks who mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI), here, were forced to compensate thousands of customers, says the Irish Examiner. The company warned that the true extent of mis-selling in Ireland could be closer to €500m rather than the €67m figure estimated in a previous Central Bank-commissioned investigation. Warning that the issue could go down as “the biggest financial scandal in Irish history,” Stanton Fisher’s managing director, Brady Collins said a full independent public inquiry was needed. The new Dublin office will see 20 jobs added to the firm’s 18 or so here already, and another 20 created over the next six months. “We have ambitious plans for Ireland,” he added. “With the new facilities and staff, we aim to tackle financial mis-selling head on. It is a national scandal. PPI has been mis-sold by banks to people who were not even eligible to avail of it in the first place,” said Mr Collins.
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TECH CHIEFS IN PLEA OVER PRIVACY DAMAGE - The US tech industry has failed to appreciate the mounting global concern over its record on online privacy and security and must act fast to prevent deeper damage to its image, Silicon Valley’s top executives and investors have conceded. The self-criticism, much of it aimed at consumer internet companies such as Google and Facebook, comes as some of the tech sector’s best-known names have been battered by a backlash over revelations of widespread US internet surveillance and concerns about their growing business and cultural dominance, says the Financial Times. Peter Thiel, a prominent start-up investor and Facebook director, said: “Silicon Valley is quite oblivious to the degree to which this crescendo of concern is building up in Europe. It’s an extremely important thing and Silicon Valley is underestimating it badly.” Google has been most in the line of fire, with the European Commission turning up the heat in a competition case last week and a recent “right to be forgotten” legal ruling forcing it to remove some links from its European search services. “I was surprised it turned this quickly,” Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, said of the change in the political mood over US tech. However, he denied that Silicon Valley had failed to anticipate the concerns. “It’s easy to blame the tech companies for being insufficiently sensitive - we are way sensitive, trust me.”
