ABOLISH AIRPORT REGULATOR - DAA CHIEF - The chief executive of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), Kevin Toland, has effectively called for the regulator responsible for setting passenger charges at Dublin Airport to be disbanded.
"Regulation isn't working," the boss of the semi-state company insisted. "You can rule anything from a little room without windows, and when you're out there actually trying to deliver a great experience to your customers, a great experience to your passengers and be efficient, it's a different ball game." He was speaking as the DAA reported an after-tax profit for 2014 of €19m, 50% lower than in 2013, after it was hit by an exceptional €21m charge related to resolving a pension issue. Operating profit was 41% higher at €40m as revenue rose 13% to €564m, however. Mr Toland claimed the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) has had a "revolving door" of commissioners in the past couple of years. Under conditions of legislation, commissioner Cathal Guiomard left last year after serving two terms. The CAR's deputy commissioner, John Spicer, led the CAR until February. He has taken up a new role in the UK. "I wouldn't be recruiting for a third one," said Mr Toland, a former Glanbia senior executive. He said the CAR's pricing determinations had "inhibited" the DAA's ability to run the company.
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IDA BOSS SAYS YES VOTE IN STATE'S ECONOMIC INTEREST - The chief executive of IDA Ireland, the inward investment agency, has intervened in the marriage referendum debate to say a Yes vote would be in the State’s economic interest. Martin Shanahan also said a No vote against same-sex marriage would send a very negative signal to the world of international business. Companies supported by the IDA employ more than 174,000 people in Ireland. “Many of our clients are on record on this matter here and in the US in particular where obviously the debate also is going on at state level. Overwhelmingly I think large multinationals in the US have come out in favour of same-sex marriage,” Mr Shanahan told The Irish Times in an interview. “We have seen the business community here advocating a Yes vote, saying that a Yes vote would be good for Ireland, good for business, good for the individual.” Asked about the negative response within the No campaign to Twitter’s call for a Yes vote, Mr Shanahan said there were very few occasions during the year when there was a spike in international attention towards Ireland. “You might get two or three [years] where everybody is looking at Ireland. This may be one of them on the basis that we’re the only country which is putting a question like this to a referendum of the people,” he said. “In my view a Yes vote will say that Ireland is open, inclusive and welcomes diversity and that would be a very positive message to be sending internationally and I think it is what internationally people believe.
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REBRAND OF NEWSPAPER GROUP REFLECTS 'NEW REALITY' - The changing face of media and the increasing prevalence of digital content was last night reflected in the rebranding of the country’s newspaper representative body at an event in Dublin. The body formerly known as National Newspapers of Ireland will now be known as NewsBrands Ireland following the event, which was attended by more than 200 people from the media and advertising industries, says the Irish Examiner. The rebrand will see the organisation take on a new identity, including a revised logo and website, as well as the appointment of key new personnel, with Vincent Crowley assuming the role of chairman. "We live in a changing world and it was time that our identity reflected the new reality of newspaper publishing and news delivery," said Mr Crowley. "We are no longer newspaper publishers in the traditional sense but owners of NewsBrands media, both print and online", he said.
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CHURCH OF ENGLAND BLACKLISTS COAL AND TAR SANDS INVESTMENTS - The Church of England, one of the world’s wealthiest religious institutions, has decided to blacklist coal and tar sands investments, in a striking victory for campaigners seeking to make fossil fuels as unpopular as tobacco. The Church announced on Thursday that it would sell £12m of its holdings in thermal coal and tar sands companies, two of the most polluting fossil fuels, says the Financial Times. “Climate change is the most pressing moral issue in our world,” said the Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Nick Holtam, lead bishop on the environment. The move comes nearly three years after the appointment of Justin Welby, a former senior executive at the now defunct Enterprise Oil company, as Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church, which has an investment portfolio worth more than £9 billion, will no longer put its money into any company that gets more than 10% of its revenues from extracting coal burnt for energy or oil from tar sands. This means it may retain shares in companies such as BHP Billiton, which mines coal but earns a large chunk of revenues from iron ore, copper, and aluminium, said Edward Mason, the Church’s head of responsible investment. But companies that focus on coal mining, such as Peabody in the US, would be excluded.
