This Week
Ryanair is Business & Finance Company of the Year; Oil explorer Tuskar could be on brink of "biggest oil discovery of decade"; Apartment market in Dublin at standstill; Milltown fights for economic survival.
10 years ago
Ryanair has been selected Business & Finance Company of the Year, after becoming Europe's largest and most profitable low-fares airline in little more than a decade, going from 800,000 passengers in the early 1990s to over six million and outgrowing its competitor Aer Lingus by 120%.
The company, which has become the largest travel site in Europe as well as the most visited website in Ireland, managed to re-define budget flying.
Fran Rooney, on the other hand, is the Business & Finance Business Person of The Year. He is the man behind the Baltimore miracle, an internet security company purchased for less than £500,000 four years ago and which is now worth £4.3bn and growing.
In line with a fast-growing trend, VHI is to launch a major healthcare portal in May. With an initial investment of £4.2m, the site aims to become "the first internet-enabled business model for healthcare in Ireland".
20 years ago
In Colombia, a small Irish exploration company Tuskar is performing commerciality tests on what could be one of the biggest oil discoveries of the last decade. In order to go into production, the company must pump 1,000 barrels of oil a day from each of four wells and come to terms with the state oil company, Ecopetrol. After that, Irish investors could be celebrating a deal with an oil major such as Shell or Mobil.
After visiting the IFSC in Dublin, the chairman of Lloyds of London Murray Lawrence forecasted a trading relationship between the two locations, the first of which has been claimed the "fastest growing captive insurance centre in the world".
Paschal Phelan invested £15m in Master Pork, a business that could reach pre-tax profits of £3.7m by 1994, thanks to a strong variety of high-quality retailers across Europe and the premise of producing freerange quality pig meat for the green consumer of the 1990s.
30 years ago
Strikewise, 1979 has been the worst year ever, mostly regarding the public sector with a marathon postal strike. The private sector, however, comes across as virtually strikefree, especially in the fastest-growing industry of all: electronics technology, a field in which Ireland promises to become one of Europe's leading producers.
The apartment market in Dublin has come to a standstill. After a mini-construction boom, prices are now higher and most flats lack the Certificate of Reasonable Value on them, meaning that no loan can be obtained to buy them. First-time buyers and those looking for manageable properties find themselves out of the market.
The quest for fresh bread doesn't seem to be getting easier for Dubliners, with firms such as Johnston, Mooney & O'Brien striving to deliver their best product on time, while Brennans, one of the city's smallest, has taken over 10% of the market in a surprisingly short period of time.
40 years ago
Osaka's Expo 70 feels like "stepping out of the 20th Century and into the 21st". Ireland's stand attracts Japanese Joyce readers and other visitors. Even though tiny in comparison to monster American and Russian pavilions, it offers visitors a taste of the cheerful and friendly Irish spirit. Guinness, on the other hand, is presented as one of Nigeria's "native products".
In an effort to prevent the disappearance of one of Galway's smallest towns in the face of constant emigration, Milltown Development Association is offering a £4,000 grant, a free site and additional help to an industrialist to establish a factory in the town.
PR and the use of computers are now acknowledged as important aids to industry, with PR being regarded as "the management of communication" and the latter being forecast as a provider of a service that "will be quite different from what it has been in the past".
