TOP COMREG OFFICIAL TO JOIN EIR - Several leading Irish telcos have expressed unease about Eir's recruitment of a senior official from the regulator's office.
Comreg's head of regulatory finance Kjeld Hartog is leaving to join the State's largest telecoms firm as a senior adviser on pricing, says the Irish Times. Mr Hartog, who has been with Comreg since 2010, would have played a key role in shaping the regulator's pricing policy in the wholesale market, in which Eir is the dominant player. He carried out the review that led to Comreg's clampdown on mobile termination rates, which will affect revenue at Eir's mobile arm Meteor. Mr Hartog also recently completed a report on access pricing in relation to fibre broadband, which the former semi-State is rolling out across its fixed-line network. Eir's main rivals in the Irish market are understood to have written to Comreg to express concern about Mr Hartog's move, suggesting it may pose a possible conflict of interest. In a statement, Comreg said: "In such circumstances, anyone leaving to work for a regulated entity goes on immediate garden leave for the relevant notice period and the normal confidentiality rules still apply."
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SURGE IN NUMBER OF 'RICH PARENTS' USING LOOPHOLE TO AVOID TAX - There has been a huge increase in the number of families using a controversial loophole to avoid paying inheritance tax.
Some 740 families availed of the dwelling-house exemption last year, costing the exchequer €52m, the Irish Independent has learned. This is an increase of almost 40% on the number of people using the loophole since 2013. Most of these people are understood to be wealthy families buying properties for their sons and daughters. Revenue Commissioners officials are known to have serious reservations about the exemption, which they claim is "much abused". Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath, who obtained the figures, said in many cases the tax relief was being used to transfer extremely valuable properties, other than the family home, free of inheritance tax. "This was never the intention of the provision and the Department of Finance needs to complete its review of this relief and take action to prevent significant and unjustified loss of revenue to the State," he said. He said there was "aggressive use" of the loophole.
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BID TO STOP COACH PARK IN DUBLIN'S DOCKLANDS FAILS - An Bord Pleanála has given the go-ahead for a bus depot in Dublin’s docklands despite facing opposition from accounting giant PwC and developer Johnny Ronan.
In the ruling, the appeals board has given the National Transport Authority - NTA - planning permission lasting five years for a coach park at the former North Wall freight depot in Sheriff Street Upper that has the capacity for 50 buses. Dublin City Council had given its green light for the depot earlier this year on the CIÉ lands, but the plan was put on hold following appeals lodged by Mr Ronan’s RGRE Grafton Ltd and the Spencer Dock Management Ltd, or SDML. The facility only permits empty private coaches to park to help provide an alternative to kerbside parking in the capital, says the Irish Examiner. At present, there is no dedicated facility to accommodate private coaches accessing Dublin city centre for commuters and tourists. The coach depot will accommodate up to 100 coaches a day. With 2,000 staff, PwC is a major employer at its Spencer Dock head office close to the proposed bus depot. A temporary access road at Park Lane is planned. In an observation lodged with the board by director of infrastructure Tom Neary, PwC says “such a volume of heavy traffic as is proposed by the NTA would greatly impact PwC as a principal occupier and employer of approximately 2,000 people in Spencer Dock”.
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APPLE BROACHED TIME WARNER BID AS GROWTH HUNT TURNS TO CONTENT - Apple has had a significant hand in pushing the media industry into the digital age. Now, the technology group is trying to find a way to get far more deeply involved in the business itself.
The revelation that Eddy Cue, a senior executive at the iPhone maker, broached the idea of a possible purchase of Time Warner late last year is the most dramatic sign yet of Apple’s rising interest in media. It comes at a watershed moment for the world’s most valuable company, as Apple experiences the first revenue decline in the nine-year life of the iPhone, writes the Financial Times. The company relies heavily on the smartphone business, which produced two-thirds of its $126 billion in revenues over the past six months. So evidence that the iPhone has entered a more mature phase has left investors groping for signs of where sustained growth will come from in future. Apple has already supplied one answer: from generating more money from people who already use its devices, particularly in the form of recurring fees. Thanks in part to the sale of things such as digital music and movies, services have emerged this year as the company’s largest source of revenue after the iPhone. And now that Apple has a foot planted squarely in the media industry’s door, it now seems ready to barge in further.
