Breakfast Business

We bought 19% more cars in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. We bought 69% more electric cars in that period too but we still haven't reached the number of new cars registered in 2019. Joining Joe this morning was Brian Cooke the Director General of the Society of the Irish Motoring Industry SIMI .

Keelings flowers have only been around for almost a century but have grown rapidly since the mid-1990s and now produce 5 million bouquets a year. They’ve just today announced a major new 8500 sq metre facility in St Margarets in north Dublin which they claim will be the most sustainable of its kind in the country. Steven Devoy the Business Unit Director for the Flowers at Keelings joined Joe this morning on the show to chat about their new investment.

Business Editor Joe Lynam takes a run-through of some of the business stories this morning.

Cows and other farm animals produce about 14% of human-induced climate emissions mostly in the form of their farts and burps. In addition, it costs an average of €1500 to feed and raise a single cow per annum. So apart from the principled reason of not wishing to eat animals, it’s making increasing sense to cut down on animal-derived products. Could seaweed be one of the solutions? One Irish company in Mullingar thinks so and is selling seaweed-based cat and dog food as well as soil supplements. For more on this, Joe spoke to Ollie Greene the founder of Better Plants.

Last week the ESRI slashed its GDP forecasts for Ireland from 5% to 0.1% - a remarkable change. But today Davy Stockbrokers puts its neck on the line by sticking with its forecasts of 5.5% growth. It also suggests that house prices will grow in value by 1.5% this year Conall MacCoille is the author of the report for Davys and joined Joe this morning on the show.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

18 months ago interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic were effectively zero. Then inflation returned with a vengeance - reaching almost double digits for the first time in 4 decades. The first major central bank to react was the Federal Reserve in the US and now it looks as if inflation is moving in the right direction. This morning Joe caught up with the President of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Raphael Bostic who is in Ireland as a guest of the Irish Association of Investment Managers.

Our winner this month is the Chief Executive of Meagher's Pharmacy Group, Oonagh O’Hagan. Originally from Tyrone, Oonagh worked in Meaghers pharmacy in Baggot St almost 30 years ago and decided to buy the business from the Meagher family. She kept the brand name and now has 9 pharmacies - mostly in Dublin. But she’s transformed the business and created a video pharmacy consultation side as well as selling food supplements. Meaghers has been acknowledged as one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces in 2020 and 2021. And now she’s the Newstalk BPTM for June. All with thanks to Eversheds Sutherland.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

In early April it emerged that there had been a series of sexual harassment allegations made against senior management at the Confederation of British Industry. It’s then Director General Tony Danker from Northern Ireland was forced to stand down. Then major British companies withdrew their memberships from the CBI and now its very future is under the microscope. One of its most vocal former presidents is also an Irishman: Paul Drechsler who spoke to Joe this morning.

The PM Group builds giant manufacturing facilities or research labs or even distilleries. They will say there’s hardly a big project they can't design and build. Its annual results are just out Revenues came in at €612m and operating profit was €44m. Although headquartered here, the PM Group is rapidly expanding in the US where it hopes to gain from the massive green construction projects supported by the federal government. Dave Murphy is the chief executive of the PM Group in Ireland spoke to Joe this morning on the show.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

A major scandal is enveloping the consultants PwC in Australia. One of its senior partners left the firm and was doing paid work for the Australian federal government but he was also feeding highly secretive and valuable information back to old colleagues who used it to bid for lucrative contracts elsewhere. 20% of PWC total income came from government contracts and now it’s been forced to sell that business for the princely sum of AUS$1. The scandal is now shining a bright light on all the big auditing and consulting firms. Speaking to Joe on the show this morning, Henry Belot is a correspondent with the Guardian newspaper in Australia.

Many schools break up for the summer this week and many families will head off somewhere nice straight away. But what if you had to change your plans after booking a lot of stuff. According to the online insurance aggregators Peopl.ie, a third of travel insurance claims happen when customers have to change their travel plans and cancel. With more on this, Joe spoke to Paul Walsh is the boss of Peopl.ie online insurance. aggregator

Business Editor Joe Lynam takes a run through of some of the business stories today.

An astonishing 64.3% of all mortgages approved last month were for First time buyers. That means that only a third of mortgages granted go to people moving homes. It follows a 72% decline in switching or re-mortgaging over the past year. What does that tell us about the health of the home loan market amid soaring interest rates? Speaking to Joe this morning was Brian Hayes the Chief Executive of the Banking & Payments Federation of Ireland.

Clare Island just off the mayo coast has a population of only 160 people. It’s pretty remote -even in the summertime and so the government is working alongside Cisco to deliver healthcare via drones. But it’s not just drones dropping prescriptions. It’s also a much bigger tele-health project involving robots performing triage which aims to make the island one of the healthiest in Ireland. Brian Jordan, Head of Innovation and Industry Solutions at Cisco Ireland

A look at today's business papers with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

A run-through of some of the business stories today with Newstalk Business Editor Joe Lynam.

We’ve spent the whole weekend following the tidbits of information coming from within Russia without having a full grip on what’s going on. One thing is clear: the Wagner group is posing the biggest ever threat to the nearly 23 years in power for Valdimir Putin. But what happens to Russia if Prigozin topples Putin and what might it mean for the global economy and the war in Ukraine? Speaking to Joe on the show this morning was Ian Bond a former diplomat and now Director for foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform.