Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock

On this week’s episode, host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by the Irish Times economics experts Cliff Taylor and Eoin Burke-Kennedy. Tensions are rising between US President Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve. Trump has made it very clear that he is no fan of Fed chief Jerome Powell who is due to step down from his post in May, and that he wants the Fed to be more aggressive with interest r...

2025 proved to be a record year for tax receipt figures, with the total hitting €106bn. This was despite extensive warnings about the State’s precarious position due to Donald Trump’s series of tariffs, and the number of big multinationals that use Ireland as an export base. It was another bumper year for corporation tax receipts as they exceeded expectations, but perhaps the non-corporation...

For this week’s episode, host Ciarán Hancock Is joined by an expert panel to look forward to 2026. After another record-breaking year for corporate tax receipts, is there now a real threat of concentration risk in the Irish economy? A huge amount of money has been raised and spent on AI, but where is it at in terms of its development? When will investors start looking for a tangible return? And wi...

For this episode of Inside Business, host Ciarán Hancock is joined by a panel of experts to discuss the major stories of 2025. A busy year in markets was dominated by US president Donald Trump’s threats to impose huge tariffs on the United States’ trading partners, including Ireland. Ireland’s housing crisis showed no sign of improvement with completions trending well below Government targets. And...

On this week’s episode of Inside Business, host Ciarán Hancock is joined by Chairman of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) Seamus Coffey to discuss his concerns on how the Government is spending our corporation tax windfall. Ifac were this week in front of the Oireachtas Budgetary Committee giving its view on how that windfall is being spent. The corporation tax receipts for November topped&...

The latest report from the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland shows that only the top 20 per cent of earners can afford to rent an average apartment built in Ireland in 2025, while just the top 40 per cent of earners can afford to buy one. Paul Mitchell, a chartered quantity surveyor and one of the authors of the Real Costs of New Apartment Delivery report, joins host Ciará...

On this week’s episode of Inside Business, we look at the sluggish delivery of large and necessary infrastructure projects that has been a feature of several successive Governments. A population surge means building more and better infrastructure for transport, water and housing has become increasingly urgent. The Government unveiled a new plan this week. The Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce...

On this week’s Inside Business, host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by senior lecturer in housing at TUD Dublin, Lorcan Sirr. The episode starts with some recent good news, that the net wealth of Irish households is nearly €1.3 trillion, or an average of €228,000 each. Sounds good but as Lorcan explains, this is an illusion. He argues that Ireland isn’t really a wealthy country in spite of wha...

On this week’s episode of Inside Business, we look at the role of AI in the hiring and firing of workers. Host Ciarán Hancock is joined on the podcast by Ciara O’Brien of the Irish Times to discuss why Amazon recently announced 14,000 job cuts globally as it seeks to trim expenses. Is this being driven solely by AI? Well, in an update to staff in June, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy stated the...

This week on Inside Business host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by Gary McGann, a grandee of Irish business whose many roles included being chief executive of drinks group Gilbeys, Aer Lingus and packaging group Smurfit. Born and raised in Dublin, Gary actually began his career in the civil service, with the Comptroller & Auditor General. He studied at night to become an accountant and la...

This week’s episode of Inside Business sees host Ciarán Hancock joined in studio by Niall Tallon, chief executive of Irish telecoms group Imagine. A minor in the Irish market, the company recently made a bold move offering cheap fibre broadband products along with a promise not to increase those prices for the next five years. This is designed to double its customer base by 2030 as part of a multi...

This week’s guest on Inside Business is Tom O’Brien, group chief executive of Nephin Energy. Nephin owns 43 per cent of the Corrib gas field off the west coast of Ireland and also has ambitious plans to develop a network of agri-based biomethane plants across the country. While gas is a polluting fuel it continues to be an important part of our energy mix. Tom joins host Ciarán Hancock in studio t...

There is research from Brussels think tank Transport & Environment suggesting that plug-in hybrids are just as polluting as petrol cars. Neil Briscoe is a motoring expert and writes extensively on this for The Irish Times. And given his knowledge of motoring and our transition to EVs, were the findings a surprise to him? In the second part of the podcast, host Ciarán Hancock speaks to Cliff Ta...

On this episode of Inside Business host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by Billy Hann, chief executive of Dublin Bus, the biggest public transport company in our capital city. He joined the State-owned operator almost three years ago after a long career with the Irish Aviation Authority and is charged with leading a company that now transports more than 160 million passengers a year. He has a b...

Ciarán Hancock is joined by guests to pore over the main elements of Budget 2026. The €9.4 billion package includes a minimum wage increase of 65c to €14.15c per hour, a €10 across-the-board increase to core weekly welfare payments, but no once-offs like double child benefit payments and electricity credits. On the panel: Cliff Taylor, Managing Editor, The Irish Times Frank O’Neill, Tax Partner, E...

Ireland’s national soccer team will slide down the international rankings unless significant investment is made in the League of Ireland’s academy system, according to the league’s director Mark Scanlon. He has submitted a proposal to the Department of Finance ahead of Tuesday’s budget requesting €4m annually, rising to €8m after two years to be spread across Ireland’s 26 soccer academies. Mr Scan...

The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Minnesota Vikings at Croke Park this weekend in the first regular-season NFL game to take place on Irish shores. Dublin is now part of a growing roster of cities outside the United States hosting lucrative NFL games. Irishman Paul Holland has worked in the sports marketing industry for many years and has charted the financial rise of the NFL and how it dwarfs...

First up on the Inside Business podcast this week, the rift between the board of the DAA, the State-owned operator of Dublin and Cork airports, and its CEO Kenny Jacobs. The Irish Times reported yesterday that a deal has been agreed between the two sides that will see Jacobs leave his role early with a €1m exit package. Joe Brennan and Martin Wall of The Irish Times have been covering the story an...

With the budget just under a month away, what will ministers Paschal Donohoe and Jack Chambers deliver on October 7th? The one-off cost-of-living measures of recent budgets may be discontinued, but what will be in their place to help families feeling the pinch? Will there be tax cuts? And what can renters and those looking to buy a home expect? Cliff Taylor of The Irish Times joined host Ciarán Ha...

First up on Inside Business this week is the plight of independent Irish breweries, who, like so many now, are finding the cost of doing business to be far too high. This is despite an explosion in the popularity of craft beers here in the last decade. What costs are forcing some operators out of business? How are they coping with competition from far larger, commercial breweries? And will these i...

The predictably slow delivery of infrastructure here has a raft of negative consequences, not least how it undermines our competitiveness in a very challenging global environment. So why are vital projects so slow to get over the line? How does Government prioritise one project over another? And what can be done to streamline the planning process? To get into the causes and some potential solution...

The Economist magazine recently published its annual country rich list. Ireland was nowhere to be found on the list in spite of the fact that we are constantly being told that Ireland is one of the world’s richest countries. Host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by Cliff Taylor of The Irish Times to talk about how rich we all are, or not as the case may be, and the measures that ruled Ireland ou...

This week Inside Business is looking at tourism. Data from the Central Statistics Office earlier this year suggested that the number of visitors to the country had fallen off a cliff. Not so said the industry, while acknowledging that the market was a bit soft compared with the past two years of trading. Joining host Ciarán Hancock in studio to discuss this is Paul Gallagher, chief executive of th...

We start this week’s episode of Inside Business with a look at how influencers have been reminded recently by Revenue of their obligations to pay tax on their earnings. Siobhan Maguire is a contributor to The Irish Times and wrote an excellent piece this week on this hot topic. She joins host Ciarán Hancock on the line to go through the many ways influencers expose themselves to tax liability as o...

This week host Ciarán Hancock is joined in studio by economist and Irish Times contributor John FitzGerald. He gives his reaction to the EU-US trade deal that will see a 15% tariff rate on European imports going into the US, a deal that he feels the EU had agreed to with ‘two hands tied behind its back’ on account of its continued reliance on the US when it comes to the war in Ukraine. Also, ahead...