IBEC SAYS SINN FEIN 'NOT MAD' WHEN IT COMES TO THE ECONOMY - Senior members of the Irish business world envisage no difficulty developing a working partnership with Sinn Féin, should the left-leaning party be part of the next government.
As the dramatic result of the election took shape, global financial newswire Bloomberg suggested now "could be a good time to dump the country's bonds" as risks may increase, citing reasons such as spending promises by Sinn Féin. However, Brian Hayes, the top lobbyist for Irish bankers, and a former Fine Gael junior finance minister, believes suggestions of increased political risk in fiscal matters is "exaggerated", writes the Irish Times. "People need to be relaxed about this," said Mr Hayes, chief executive of Banking and Payments Federation Ireland. "With Sinn Féin, it’s all about what a programme for government says. Manifestos are one thing, but programmes for government are a different animal." In its manifesto, Sinn Féin made huge spending promises and effectively said it would narrow the tax base. However, it also pledged to retain the 12.5% corporation tax rate and protect funding for investment agency, IDA Ireland. "It was a change election. If people were talking about radical change to investment policy and free movement of capital, that would be a worry. But I don’t think they are. I’m confident of a stable government." Danny McCoy, director general of employers’ lobby group, Ibec, said he could "absolutely" see the Irish business world being able to work with Sinn Féin: "We have seen them in action in the North. Their instincts are not that mad when it comes to business."
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CENTRAL BANK WARNS OVER MAJOR BREXIT HIT AMID 'TIGHT' DEADLINE FOR DEAL - The UK will find it hard to conclude a free trade agreement (FTA) in the 11 months that remain of London's self-imposed deadline and, if it fails to do so, there will be a huge hit to the economy here.
The Central Bank of Ireland believes that in the event an agreement cannot be reached, the economy here will be 4.9% smaller by 2028 than it would have been had the UK stayed in the European Union - while unemployment will push sharply higher by more than 1.6 percentage points, says the Irish Independent. "The 11-month timeframe to conclude an EU-UK FTA is ambitious when benchmarked against the typical duration of successful trade negotiations between countries and trading blocs in the past," economists Thomas Conefrey and Graeme Walsh wrote in a report. Those figures are the equivalent of €9.5 billion, based on 2018 data, and 90,000 jobs fewer than there would have been had the UK remained an EU member. Even in the event an FTA is signed in the talks with the EU, led by Michel Barnier, Irish output would fall by around 3.5% in the long run, the economists wrote. "In each scenario, the impact of Brexit is initially transmitted to the Irish economy via the traded sector. The reduction in traded sector output would arise due to the fall in demand for Irish exports", the said.
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BAKER HUGHES DOUBLES SHANNON STAFF IN THREE YEARS - Global energy technology company Baker Hughes has a bright future on the horizon having doubled its workforce at its Shannon base in the last three years.
The company, headquartered in Houston and operating in 120 countries, is no longer majority-owned by General Electric (GE) since late last year. Today, Baker Hughes is one of the world’s largest oil field services companies. The Shannon site, in operation since 1973, originally housed Panametrics. The company was acquired in 2002 and subsequently went through the transition to Baker Hughes. There are now 280 people working in the Shannon branch. The company’s footprint has trebled to 120,000 square feet and revenue today is in the region of €100m, says the Irish Examiner. Paul Sheahan, global strategic projects manager, says the growth "is predicated on our desire within Baker Hughes, Shannon, to get into more expansive market share sectors including oil and gas but also, other sectors, including sub-sea". Staffing the Shannon base hasn't posed any problems. Diarmaid Mulholland global, vice president of measuring and sensing, says that "when we think about Shannon initially, it was primarily a manufacturing facility. In the last number of years, we have really been able to upskill our team. We have been able to recruit design engineers, application engineers, project managers and manufacturing engineers. We have upgraded the design capability and have been pleasantly surprised with the talent we’ve been able to attract locally," he added.
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UK HOME OWNERSHIP AMONG PEOPLE AGED 35-44 HAS PLUNGED - ONS - Home ownership has collapsed for UK adults in their prime working age, according to official figures that show those in their mid-30s to mid-40s are three times more likely to rent than 20 years ago.
In a reflection of surging house prices and a lost decade for wage growth since the financial crisis, the Office for National Statistics found that a third of 35- to 44-year-olds in England were renting from a private landlord in 2017, compared with fewer than one in 10 in 1997, writes The Guardian. The government statistics agency said home ownership had become increasingly concentrated among people over the age of 65. Almost three-quarters of adults in the generation that includes baby boomers born after the second world war own their own homes outright, up from just over half in 1993. Against a backdrop of rising generational divisions in modern Britain, the ONS linked Margaret Thatcher’s flagship right-to-buy policy with the boom in home ownership among older Britons, as well as a slump in social housing across the country. Since the launch of the scheme in 1979, which allowed social housing tenants to buy their homes at reduced prices, the proportion of council properties in Britain has slumped from 33.2% to only 17.6% in 2017. The findings from the ONS come with potentially damaging implications for living standards for the current generation of adults under the age of 65, who are poised to enter retirement in worse financial health than their parents.
