Year in Review: Business Pension problems worsened, house prices rose and jobs went high-tech
* The year began with Ireland taking on the presidency of the Council of the EU. In a ceremony at Dublin Castle on New Year’s Eve, with the State’s seventh time in the role promoted as a “no nonsense, no frills” presidency. Allocating €60m for the six-month tenure that involves chairing meetings and steering the EU Council agenda, it was promised as a period focused on “stability, growth, and jobs”, according to the Taoiseach. “We’ll be in the business of solutions, a recovery country driving recovery in Europe,” he declared as the Defence Forces Band played Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’. “2013 will be about recovery, both for Ireland and Europe. As we become the first country in the eurozone to exit an EU-IMF programme, Ireland can and will be a success story for Europe again.” There would be no excessive entertaining in “very salubrious locations like Dromoland Castle and Ashford Castle”, Lucinda Creighton promised. “Everything will take place in State-owned venues, so it will be a very cost-effective presidency.”
* Fáilte Ireland’s annual tourism review brought an optimistic start to the year, with figures reaching levels last seen in 2007. Overseas revenue increased by €100m to €4bn in 2012, with further growth expected this year through The Gathering. A total of 84% of the tourism businesses expected a better year based on projections of an extra 325,000 visitors, or an additional 5%, for the 2,600 happenings organised around the event. The hotel sector, which increased occupancy in 2012 from 59% to 63%, was especially buoyant on increased European traffic, especially from Germany. Fáilte Ireland chief executive Shaun Quinn revealed that employment numbers in the industry were up 5%, to 185,000. “Inquiries from some of the key markets are very strong. Air access looks very good, up 20% from the US. There’s a very strong feelgood factor for the coming year.”
* Having recruited 500 staff for its new sales office in Dublin, Sky Ireland brought its workforce to about 1,000 and aimed to invest over €1bn here over the next five years. BSkyB chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: “We see great potential here. Ireland has been a great, great market for us and more than 2m homes here tune into Sky channels each week.” The broadcaster planned the commercial launch of a residential broadband and telephone service in February, and also revealed plans of a second series for Moone Boy, filmed in Roscommon. “We hope it’s just the first in a long line of Irish productions,” Mr Darroch said.
* Energy group DCC became the latest company to consider seeking admission to the UK’s FTSE for a wider range of potential shareholders. Following in the footsteps of United Drug, Greencore, and CRH, all of which decamped to the London exchange, DCC joins an exodus that has seen the Irish Stock Exchange reduce from 76 to 52 companies in recent years. Listed on the Irish Stock Exchange since 1994, DCC said: “For some time, the majority of the group’s revenue and operating profit has been generated in the UK. With most of the group’s development activity and expenditure since 1994 taking place outside Ireland, the profile of DCC’s shareholder base has also changed significantly, with approximately 77% of shares now held by institutional investors outside Ireland.”
* Even with the online shopping revolution of the past decade, Ireland still uses cheques for regular payments, according to a survey from the Central Bank. Despite the charges attached to this fast disappearing payment method, Ireland ranks behind France as the second most popular cheque user in the EU. With 20 of the 27 member states having virtually eliminated this traditional paper trail down to two or less cheques per person per year, Ireland’s average is still 19 cheques. The ECB calculates that a cheque costs around €3.55 when all fees are included. “For a small business this cost includes the 50c stamp duty on each cheque, bank charges and postal charges, not to mention the time it takes for staff to process cheque payments,” according to Ronnie O’Toole, programme manager of the National Payments Programme. “There is strong evidence that cheque usage is a contributor to Ireland’s ‘late payment’ culture. Unless we move from the ‘cheque in the post’ culture, the problem of late payments will remain.”
* Facebook announced it was expanding its workforce, adding 100 positions at its Dublin headquarters. This brings the number of people employed at the company base to 500, and follows on from an earlier announcement by eBay that it would add 450 jobs in Louth. “These jobs, which reflect growth in markets across Europe but also the Middle East and Africa, mean we will not only be recruiting from the local economy but supporting local businesses by increasing our footprint,” said Gareth Lambe, the acting head of office for Facebook Ireland.
* Pharmaceutical company MSD announced redundancies for 12% of its workforce with the closure of its facility at Rathdrum in Wicklow. The company planned to close down operations at the plant by the end of 2015 with the loss of all 280 jobs. Originally part of Schering Plough before its merger with Merck Sharp Dohme in 2009, the closure resulted from a review of MSD’s worldwide manufacturing capabilities that saw a number of its sites around the world being sold, closed, or consolidated.
* With Irish property values having fallen significantly in recent years, bargain prices in the Dublin commercial market saw a number of major investments — including a €57m deal for offices of AL Goodbody at North Wall Quay in the IFSC. The Irish Property Unit Trust, managing over €500m in property assets for a number of pension funds, purchased the 13-year-old office block next to the Convention Centre in a deal that will a net income return of 7%. The figure matches closely the 6.93% return agreed on the €107m sale of the State Street building across the River Liffey. In other notable commercial deals, AM Alpha negotiated a return of 8.74% on the purchase of Riverside 11 for €35m, while Northwood Capital brokered a return of 7.25% on the €27m paid for One Warrington Place on the Grand Canal.
* Property developer Sean Dunne filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut, listing Ulster Bank, AIB, and Bank of Ireland among a list of Irish creditors. Estimating his liabilities between $500m and $1bn against assets of $1m and $10m, the Carlow-born developer filed for voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy six weeks after Ulster Bank was granted permission in the High Court in Dublin to serve bankruptcy proceedings on the developer over a €164m debt. One of the biggest players in the Dublin property scene at the height of the boom, his €379m purchase of the Jurys hotels site in Ballsbridge became his ultimate undoing due to planning and financing problems. His US bankruptcy petition sees Dunne join former Anglo CEO David Drumm, who filed in Massachusetts in 2010. Debtors in the US can emerge to a clean start after one year, compared to three years in Ireland. His creditors also include IDA Ireland, Dublin City Council, Wicklow County Council, Kildare County Council, the Revenue Commissioners and the US tax authorities, the Internal Revenue Services, and former attorney general Paul Gallagher, who represented the developer in the High Court. Nama is owed €185m, accruing from personal guarantees on Irish bank loans.
* ‘Too much austerity is bad’ was the gist of comments made on RTÉ by former IMF mission chief to Ireland, Ashoka Mody. Complete reliance on austerity was not “a reasonable” progression, he said, and suggested the country had other options, including “bringing in the bondholders to bear some of the cost of the sovereign distress”. The IMF quickly pointed out that Mody was now retired and his “views did not represent the fund’s position”. While acknowledging that Ireland’s bailout programme had “tackled major challenges in the banking sector and has steadily reduced the fiscal deficit from unsustainably high levels through a consolidation effort that is phased over time”, it did concede that it was “disappointing that growth was not as high as originally projected.” Mody maintained that aspects of Ireland’s recovery programme were wrong: “Clearly the experience, if experience was needed, has demonstrated that reliance on austerity is counterproductive. The alternative is unending human pain, a culture of national dependency, and a fraying European economic and social fabric.”
* Eason & Co added six franchised outlets to its chain of stores, including a number of shops belonging to the Hughes & Hughes chain at St Stephen’s Green, Santry, and Ennis. Franchise stores were also to open in Mallow, Shannon, and Killarney. Declan Hughes said becoming an Eason franchisee “makes sense given the decline in the overall book market and the threat from online. The Eason business offers a more robust commercial model in addition to a very strong brand and business organisation.” Hughes & Hughes, founded in 1986, was placed into receivership in 2010, owing €9m, but with Mr Hughes retaining the rights to the name.
* An OECD report on the Irish pension system raised the prospect of Irish people needing to work longer to enjoy a reasonable standard of living in retirement. Even with Ireland’s pension age rising to 66 next year and up to 68 by 2028, the projected gains in general life expectancy over the next four decades will outstrip rising retirement ages. “Financial sustainability is not guaranteed unless pension ages are increased beyond current plans in most OECD countries, including Ireland,” the report stated. Citizens must be encouraged to save for their own retirement “to make up for reductions in public benefits that are already in the pipeline or are likely to be required”. However, it did note the inherent problems involved in introducing a mandatory scheme for the private sector while continuing to allow public servants to remain on defined benefit schemes. “This could be perceived as unfair by the general public, given that DB schemes are generally regarded as a better deal for members due to the pension promise the employer guarantees while under defined contribution schemes, which dominate in the private sector, risk is transferred to workers.” The report said “the Government’s credibility when launching the new scheme could also be compromised if its own employees are left out of what is agreed to be a new and efficient long-term pension set-up for Irish workers”.
* Ireland’s difficulties with introducing and enforcing harsh austerity measures is mirrored across Europe, particularly in Portugal. The country announced plans to also raise the retirement age to 66 as well as making public sector employees work an extra hour per day as part of a raft of new measures needed to reduce its budget deficit and meet bailout targets. The measures, set to begin in 2014 and aimed at saving €4.8bn by 2015, include voluntary redundancy programmes for 30,000 of the country’s 600,000 public sector workers. “With these measures, our European partners cannot doubt our commitment,” said Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. “The choice is not between austerity and no austerity. Not meeting the terms would cause us to leave the euro and have catastrophic consequences for all.”
* Even in the midst of recession, millions in National Lottery prizes goes unclaimed. According to the lottery organisation in May, €14.7m in prize money was uncollected last year alone — part of winning tickets worth €90m that have gone unclaimed since 2008. Among the unclaimed wins were a €350,000 Plus 1 prize sold in Nutgrove Shopping Centre, and a €250,000 Plus 2 prize, sold in Kildare. Under the rules, winners have 90 days to collect their prize, after which the National Lottery uses the unclaimed money, equalling 2% of annual sales, to promote games, draws and other marketing campaigns. “We suspect prize money goes unclaimed because people misplace or lose their tickets, or perhaps hear that the jackpot prize has been won in, say, Dublin and because they may have purchased their ticket elsewhere they don’t bother to check for any other prize,” said a National Lottery spokesperson.
* “Sell in May and go away” might be the old stock market adage, but US markets enjoyed their best start to a year since 1999, with the Dow Jones reaching 15,000 this month. Already up 14% on the year, the market is prompting a very upbeat sentiment with a poll of money managers returning a record 74% bullish, compared to 46% last December. The Japanese Nikkei also continues to outperform, hitting 14,400, the highest level in five years. At the recent Berkshire Hathaway AGM, or ‘Woodstock for billionaires’ as the Omaha, Nebraska gathering is also known, over 40,000 shareholders hung on Warren Buffett’s every word. Touching on his own retirement, the 82-year old said: “The key is preserving a culture and having a successor, a CEO who will have more brains, more energy, more passion for it than even I have.”
* The long dormant property scene showed signs of life, with house prices nationally rising by 1.2%, while prices in the capital rose by 4.2%. The CSO’s Residential Property Price Index showed that prices across Ireland increased by 0.8% in April, compared with a 0.5% drop in March and a 1.1% decline in April of 2012. The pending expiration of the Mortgage Interest Relief scheme was believed to have partly contributed to the boost in demand.
Dublin apartment prices increased by almost 2% in April but were still 2.9% lower than in the same month in 2012. House prices in Dublin are now 55% below the peak recorded in early 2007, with apartments valued at 61% less. Across the country, property prices remain at approximately 50% below their 2007 height.
* The Irish measurement of quality of life continues to increase, despite the fallout from the recession. In the latest OECD Better Life Index, Irish people reported high levels of life satisfaction and a general sense of happiness with their lot. The index records a life satisfaction measure of 7 out of 10, higher than the OECD average of 6.6, well above Germany (6.7) and the UK (6.8), and only just below that of highest-scoring country, Australia (7.2). Measuring income levels, education, employment and health, the index found 84% of Irish people had far more positive than negative experiences at any given time.
* Demand for finance from small- and medium-sized businesses continues to increase as bank lending rises to a three-year high. Isme noted this return to more normal levels of banking, as well as a reduced loan decision time down to one month. In its Quarterly Bank Watch survey, it showed 44% of loan applications were refused, down from 52% in the first quarter. Demand for capital from banks ran to 41%, the highest level in four years. “One swallow never made a summer, but it’s the first good news that we have seen,” said Isme chief executive Mark Fielding. “Anecdotally, we are hoping that banks are starting to loosen up the purse strings, but we will see.” He said the pressure that the Government has been putting on banks has started to make a difference and “what we would have regarded as less likely businesses to get loans aren’t in the market anymore because they have been refused so often. Retail would be the main one; they are finding it hard.”
* Financial regulator Matthew Elderfield, due to leave the post later in the year, has said the pursuit of white-collar criminal needs to increase. In a statement to the Public Accounts Committee, he said the system was not effective in dealing with individual accountability relating to financial fraud or failure. “White-collar crime is an area where the system is not operating very well,” he said. “We have done a good job in dealing with institutions but I wish we had done a better job on individuals.” In his final appearance before the PAC, he said Irish banks were sufficiently capitalised at present but that new tougher rules in Basel 3 would result in them requiring extra capital of about €6bn in the future. Elderfield reported much improvement in the system generally, but that it was “not there yet”.
* The finance minister predicted up to 30,000 new houses will be needed from 2014 onwards, particularly in the Dublin area. Michael Noonan said the rise in house prices was beginning to give a “strong lead” to the market. “Dublin, as in many other areas, is giving the lead and south Dublin is giving us a strong lead; according to one survey, prices are up 12%,” he said. “There are a lot of young couples with children in apartments now and they are looking at houses. There is probably a shortage of houses in certain family home areas in Dublin. We’d need about 25,000 to 30,000 new houses each year as we plan forward. Last year there was less than six built so you can see there is a mismatch now between supply and demand and we would be conscious and we hope the market will pick it up in the first instance.” The increase in Dublin prices has reached 5% — the biggest rise in six years, according to Daft.ie. Homes in south Dublin are up 12.2%, the strongest annual growth recorded nationally since early 2007.
* Aer Lingus will expand its North American routes in 2014, reopening its San Francisco route and adding Toronto to its schedule from April. The year-round direct service between Dublin and San Francisco will have five weekly flights, with the Toronto service operating daily during the peak summer period and four times a week in the winter. The airline also plans to increase the frequency of its routes to the US, adding connections from Shannon to Boston and New York. The increased traffic has upped the airline’s transatlantic services by 24%.
* The Anglo Irish Bank tapes reveal the inner workings of senior executives and their relationship with the Central Bank. During the Sept 2008 period, the bank was close to breaching Central Bank rules, with withdrawals running at over €1bn a day and was considering assistance. “It’s time for us to have a conversation with our friends on Dame Street,” said David Drumm. “I don’t want any fucking bollixology from them.” Calling the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank a “fucking shower of clowns”, Drumm outlined his negotiating strategy: “If it gets close to the bone in terms of cash, we need to be able to pull money down, so get yourselves ready, and then how does it look and does it become public and all that stuff.” To which John Bowe, then Anglo’s head of treasury, replies: “And we need to find out what they need from us to give us the cash.” Discussing €800m in new lending, he says: “Just fucking calm down, we’ll get that sorted. If we have to renege on deals, fucking get the lawyers to stick the boot in stop them closing then that is what we will do.”
* The ECB left interest rates at a record low of 0.5% and confirmed they could fall further. ECB president Mario Draghi said monetary policy would remain until well into 2014: “Our monetary policy stance provides support to a gradual recovery in economic activity in the remaining part of the year and in 2014. The governing council confirms that it expects the key ECB rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time,” he added. “Euro area economic activity should stabilise and recover at a slow pace. The risks surrounding the economic outlook for the euro area continue to be on the downside.” Draghi wants the minutes of ECB meetings, which until now have been kept secret, made public for a “richer communication” to benefit the union. “We are not a one-country set-up,” he said.
* The Fota Island Resort in Cork Harbour, built by Irish developer John Fleming at €90m, was sold on behalf of Nama to a Chinese hotelier family for an estimated €20m. Colliers International confirmed that the resort, comprising a hotel, golf courses, and holiday lodges set on 500 acres, was purchased by the Kang family. The new owners, who have other hotels in Shanghai and Beijing, were familiar with Fota Island Resort from a number of visits over the years and were pleased with the purchase, their first investment in Europe. The Kangs plan further investment in refurbishment and an extension of activities to the resort.
* Kilkenny is ranked the friendliest city in Europe by Conde Nast travel magazine. The only European city to make the top 10, the magazine’s readers praised the city’s clean air and pubs. “People were always greeting you,” said one visitor, who also noted the town’s “wonderful restaurants, historical venues, and stores”. Dublin was ranked 12th overall, with one reader commending “the friendliest natives I have ever encountered”. Cork was ranked 20th, with the locals described as “consistently friendly and helpful.” Florianopolis in Brazil topped the league table of most friendliest cities, followed by Hobart on the Australian island of Tasmania and Thimpu in Bhutan. Newark, New Jersey was awarded the dubious distinction of most unfriendly city in the world. .
* Shares in Microsoft rose steeply after chief executive Steve Ballmer said he was stepping down from a 30-year career with the company. Ballmer, 57, known for flamboyant stage appearances throughout his 13-year tenure as CEO, cited the company’s transformation plans for his sudden decision. “It was an emotional and difficult thing to do. I love this company. I love the way we helped invent and popularise computing and the PC. I love the bigness and boldness of our bets.” A college friend of Bill Gates, Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980, becoming the start-up’s 30th employee and its first business manager. Famous for dismissing the importance of the iPhone and the iPad, as well as describing Google as “a house of cards”, he leaves with a net worth of $15.2bn.
* Former solicitor Michael Lynn has cost his fellow professionals €2.6m in compensation paid to his clients, according to the Law Society of Ireland. Over €4.7m has so far been paid to clients of Lynn from the society’s compensation fund, with additional costs involved in winding down his firm in the “hundreds of thousands”. Lynn was struck off the solicitors’ role in May 2008 after an investigation by the society uncovered serious irregularities in his accounts. He has been living in Brazil for the past number of years, and was arrested there as part of a bid by the Irish state to have him extradited to face charges related to his business dealings. He fled in Dec 2007 after being summoned to court to answer questions related to his financial dealings in a civil action being taken by the society.
* Ryanair shares plunged by more than €1bn after a fall in bookings and weaker sterling prompted the airline to issue a profit warning. When CEO Michael O’Leary said yearly profit would be in the low range of €600m, 11% was wiped off the shares to €6. The drop in profits was partially blamed for the exceptionally good summer, which O’Leary had warned about earlier in the year. “If yields, a measure of fare prices, continue to weaken, profit may end up at or slightly below the lower end of this range. In recent weeks, we have noticed a perceptible dip in forward fares and yields into September, October, and November.” Increased competition was also affecting profitability. “I have no doubt that the market will be weaker than the industry is expecting over the next couple of months, and we are going to respond to that by being out there first and being aggressive with pricing.” While Ryanair promised an aggressive discounting of seats to reclaim lost ground, he said the main blame for the profit drop was weakness in sterling.
* The Cleantech Investment Conference, hosting more than 100 technology companies to Dublin, highlighted a rising graph of energy awareness and the potential surge in activity. An industry with a potential worth of $5 trillion worldwide, Green Way’s executive director Aideen O’Hora said the Irish sector has shown strong potential in recent years with increased opportunities for investment in early stage firms. “Our 2012 Global Cleantech Innovation Index report ranked Ireland ninth overall in terms of its innovation potential. We want to understand what is happening in the Irish market and to focus on the Irish corporates, emerging and new Irish companies, and the convergence across cleantech and IT.”
* Consumer confidence hit a six-year high this month, resulting from positive news in the jobs and property markets, despite a fall in borrowing as consumers use available funds to repay debt. The KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI consumer sentiment index rose to 73.1 in September from 66.8 in August, reaching its highest level since 2007. It also recorded a majority of positive views on the economic outlook for the first time since Feb 2006.
“September’s survey reveals growing confidence amongst consumers, with improvements compared to September last year and August this year,” said Kevin Timoney of the ESRI. However, data from the Central Bank revealed that Irish households continue to borrow less, with lending down 4.3% in the year to Aug 2013. The data also showed that foreign claims on Irish banks fell 6% to €100bn.
* House of Representatives speaker John Boenher declared there was “no way” Republican lawmakers will agree to a measure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling without moves to rein in deficit spending. “We’re not going down that path,” he said. “It is time to deal with America’s problems. How can you raise the debt limit and do nothing about the underlying problem?” After a week-long government shutdown, Boehner said Republicans demanded concessions to reopen government, including changes to President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Obama and the Democrats rejected the demand. A resolution was passed to fund the country until January, ending a two-week shutdown.
* Facebook announced a major expansion of its European headquarters in Dublin with a doubling of the office space it currently occupies, followed by Yahoo’s decision to rent 75,000sq ft in the Point Village. Amazon is also to move into a 60,000sq ft premises on Burlington Road. The three deals amounted to the largest tranche of new office space let in the Irish market for years.
* Unemployment continued to fall during October, to below the 400,000 mark for the first time in four years. CSO figures showed a monthly drop from 13.3% to 13.2%, a 16th consecutive decrease. Social Protection Minister Joan Burton said: “It still means that unemployment is unacceptably high but it is decreasing, although not as quickly as we would like for the people affected and their families and their communities but it is going at last in the right direction.”
The live register recorded a decrease in the number of people claiming welfare benefits of 3,700, and in unadjusted terms, there were 396,500 people signing on during October — the first time since May 2009 that the figure fell below the 400,000 threshold.
* UTV announced plans to launch a new Dublin-based television channel targeting viewers in the Republic. Due to come on air in 2015, its schedule will include a nightly news and current affairs programme “at the heart of the schedule” that will report “from all corners of the country”. The channel will be underpinned by a content deal giving it exclusive rights to popular soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale in the Irish market. The channel is expected to create up to 100 jobs, subject to the regulatory go-ahead.
“We believe that shortly after Christmas we will find out whether or not we have been successful,” said Michael Wilson, managing director of UTV Television. “We have been here since 1959. We intend to be here in 2059, and beyond. It’s a very straightforward, simple concept and that is to provide the ITV schedule customised to meet the needs and preferences of Irish viewers,” he said. The deal means that TV3 will be obliged to stop broadcasting the likes of Coronation Street, The Jeremy Kyle Show, and I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here, prompting chief executive David McRedmond to comment that it was “almost inevitable” that its arrangement to broadcast the popular shows would come to an end.
* Global job site Indeed announced its intention to expand its Dublin based EMEA headquarters with the creation of 100 jobs over the next 12 months. The company has begun recruiting personel, with its vice-president David Rudick saying Dublin has proven itself as the “ideal location for a high–growth technology company like Indeed.” Indeed indexes jobs from over 3,000 sources and has added over 10,000 new Irish jobs to the site. With 100m visitors worldwide, Indeed was described by Barry O’Leary, IDA Ireland chief executive, as one of the “jewels in the crown of the Irish-based ‘born on the internet’ companies”, and said the expansion is “very welcome news for the Irish economy”.
* Keeping a lid on any overt enthusiasm at Ireland’s exit from the bailout, Taoiseach Enda Kenny promised the government would stick to “prudent budgetary policies” and that “now is not the time to change our course or direction”. He said: “While the bailout is over, we must approach the future with that same clarity and decisiveness.” The pain of budget cuts has not passed, he added, but indicated the worst may be over. “The clear and decisive path that has been followed for the past three years puts us in a position where we can now be optimistic for our country’s future. But the progress that we have made must not be put at risk.” While he certainly did not resemble anything like Santa in this season of goodwill, there was the hint of future generosity for the country’s hard-pressed citizens in his speech to the nation. “Our lives won’t change overnight. But it does send out a powerful signal internationally, that Ireland is fighting back, that the spirit of our people is as strong as ever. Your patience and resilience have restored our national pride and empowered us to face the challenges that remain.”
* A report on the Irish economy from the Fitch ratings agency predicted that one in five residential mortgages in arrears for more than 90 days are likely to end up being repossessed. Forecasting the possibility of single-digit price growth next year, with prices falling by another 10%, the report does not see the recent surge in Dublin property prices as an upward indicator, but more to do with a supply shortage. Expecting loan arrears to peak in 2014, the agency said 40% of loans that are more than 90 days in arrears will begin to “reperform”, while another 40% will be subject to varying degrees of writedown. Fitch believes 4.8% of outstanding mortgage balances could be lost by the banks.
* Pensions will move a little further from our grasp under new laws coming in on New Year’s Day. The State pension will move up to 66 in 2014, and then to 68 thereafter. The transitional state pension will cease to exist, affecting anyone due to retire next year. Rather than receiving the full contributory pension of €230.30 a week, retirees will instead have to apply for jobseeker’s allowance, at a rate of €188 a week. Claimants over the age of 62 won’t have to engage with the Department of Social Protection’s “activation” process, and will not be liable for sanctions, instead receiving their payments electronically and only needing to sign on more than once a year. Small mercies. Happy New Year.
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