Search Results for: Irish

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ALUMINA producers in Ireland, Italy and France have escaped an order from the European Commission that they pay their respective governments additional excise duty for heavy fuel oil they bought between 2002 and 2003. Brussels had told them to pay up because the companies had enjoyed a reduced rate of duty, which the Commission concluded was an illegal disguised subsidy.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH the global organic food market in a state of exponential growth, a new trade deal between the world’s two biggest organic food producers – the United States and the European Union (EU) – could significantly boost organic food and drink sales in both their markets, currently valued at more than USD50 billion annually combined.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has approved the appointment of Irish finance ministry secretary general Kevin Cardiff to the European Court of Auditors, against the advice of its own budgetary control committee. It had opposed his serving on the European Union’s financial watchdog over its claims that Cardiff had overseen a Euro EUR3.6 billion accounting error at the ministry.…

BY PETER DA COSTA and KEITH NUTHALL

IRELAND’s Electric Supply Board (ESB) has secured a Euro EUR235 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to improve the performance of national energy networks. Signed on November 17, the agreement is designed to enable Irish power lines to better transmit coastal wind energy to populated areas, to introduce smart metering and develop re-charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.…

BY MARK ROWE

CO-GENERATION (or combined-heat and power – CHP) plants operate using a variety of technologies: gas turbines, fuel cells, Stirling engines, gas or diesel engines and combined cycle gas turbines. According to the Joint Research Centre (JRC) – the European Union’s (EU) scientific and technical research body – natural gas is currently the preferred fuel across Europe for co-gen, with combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) and gas turbine plants expected to become the predominant future technology for large-scale units.…

BY JENNIFER BRAY

THE IMF may have been in Dublin last Friday, but around the corner piggy banks had been broken and mattress money uncovered as buyers queued for a chance to bid for what they considered a property bargain. More than EUR15 million was spent at the auction with 83 of the 84 properties selling on the day.…

BY NEIL CALLANAN

THE CHOICE of The Shelbourne Hotel on Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green for Ireland’s first major post-recession property auction could not have been better. The grand dame of Irish hotels in many ways serves as a microcosm of the boom and the bust of the Irish property market over the last decade.…

BY LEE ADENDOORF, KEITH NUTHALL and MJ DESCHAMPS

EUROPEAN Union (EU) governments are facing a political crossroads on a key question whose answer will have an important impact on the EU knitwear sector – both manufacturers and retail. That is the issue of rules of origin and whether there should be an EU-wide law that says clothing and accessories (plus a wide range of other manufactured goods) should be sold with labels saying which country they are made in, if they are imported from outside the EU.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

Driven by consumer preference and regulation, the replacement of solvent based coatings with water-based ones has been a slow but steady process, beginning in earnest at the turn of the century in the USA, followed by Britain and Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) consumer protection network RAPEX has warned of a series of hair-care products being discovered containing substances banned by the EU cosmetics directive. Czech authorities banned Polish product hair dye 111 Noix Dore for containing 2-nitro-p-phenylenendiamine and hydroquinone.…