Search Results for: Irish

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
SHAREHOLDERS of Irish packaging giant Jefferson Smurfit have finally given the go-ahead to a buyout by US private equity house Madison Dearborn Partners, in a GBPounds 2.37 billion deal. The takeover, the largest in Irish corporate history, is Madison Dearborn’s fifth and biggest investment in the paper and packaging industry.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
MORE people are drinking wine in the Irish Republic according to the latest figures from the Wine Development Board of Ireland.

The Board reported growth in the country’s wine market the first four months of 2002, with women driving up sales, consuming 57 per cent of all wine sold in Ireland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN has been ordered by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to “devise, as appropriate, measures to prevent pollution of the marine environment” maybe resulting from the operational launch of a new MOX (mixed oxide fuel) plant, in Sellafield, next summer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FISHING catch quotas in European Union territorial waters are to be slashed again to reduce pressure on stocks, which Brussels says “are in a parlous state.” The European Commission proposed a reduction of the total allowable catch of haddock in the Irish Sea by 52%, sole in the North Sea by 25% and langoustines in the Bay of Biscay by between 45 and 50%.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE RELIANCE of part of the Irish power sector on the locally sourced fuel of peat is to continue into the next two decades, after a state aid scheme allowing the Irish government to fund its use was agreed by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
WATER pricing reform is on its way in the European Union. The water framework directive passed last year imposes a commitment on Member States by the year 2010 to ensure that their pricing policies “provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
LEGAL pressure is being brought to bear on the Irish government to force it to prepare anti-pollution programmes for shellfish waters, under the EU Shellfish Water Directive. The European Commission is threatening Dublin with possible legal action at the European Court of Justice, if it does not by the end of this month, (September), advise it of a plan to implement the directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has rejected a bid by Irish Sugar to overturn a fine ordered by the European Commission, reduced on appeal to Euro 7.8 million, because of alleged anti-competitive practices committed by it and its distributor, Sugar Distributors Limited.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE IRISH government could be ordered to be massive daily recurring fines, because of its failure to implement EU directive 1999/47/EC on transport of dangerous goods by road, which sets safety rules for this kind of haulage work.

Ireland has already been censured by the European Court of Justice for not writing its contents into national Irish legislation and now the European Commission has asked the European Court of Justice to consider using exceptional powers to levy fines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its alleged failure to extend the EU product liability directive to primary agricultural foodstuffs, such as meat and game. Ireland had until last December to changes its law, to allow Irish food manufacturers, processors and caterers to pass on liability for defective products to farmers, where the blame is clear.…