Tag Archives: economy

ATTITUDES to work have changed quite dramatically since before the pandemic, and it’s one of the reasons Clare tourism is going to see a huge labour shortage this summer, Lahinch hotelier Michael Vaughan says. Mr Vaughan said that conversations he has had with people in other sectors suggest the shortage is quite widespread across the economy, and he feels that younger people don’t attach as much importance to work as they would have done even a few years ago. “The only explanation I can give is that there has been a reset in the mindset of a certain cohort. Certainly younger people aged from 20 to 30 seem to have reset their opinion of what the balance of work and life is. “That allied to the surplus of money that a lot of that age group might have from the pandemic payments, this year they’re not inclined to take up seasonal work or work that’d be full time. “There seems …

THE Clare economy is in a very strong position and is “providing jobs at a ferocious rate”, according to a leading county council executive. The Council’s Director of Economic Development Liam Conneally told this week’s meeting of Shannon Municipal District Councillors that many of the multinationals with bases in the county are doing particularly well. At the meeting Mr Conneally, giving an update to the members, said despite the pandemic, Foreign Direct Investment in the Mid-West had been “very considerable” between 2019 and 2021. “We are close to reaching full employment,” he added. He said that across the board, in terms of foreign direct investment, indigenous businesses and micro businesses supported by the Council, there is very considerable job creation. Mr Conneally said that sometimes the good work done by agencies of the State is overlooked, while he said the Council has been working very positively with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, while he said that the Clare Local Enterprise …

County saw the second highest rent rise in country over 12-month period CLARE has seen the second highest increase in rents in Ireland over the past year. Average rents in the county now stand at almost €900, according to the Residential Tenancies Board, with a 16.1% increase in one year. Between the second quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of 2021, Clare had the second highest increase in Ireland. The standardised average rent in Clare is now €894.06, and while the growth in Clare has been very substantial and fast, the average price here is still lower than in 13 other counties. The RTB found that in the Shannon Municipal District the average rent is €967.08, while in the Ennis Municipal District it is €921.55. Figures for the county’s other Municipal Districts were not available. The RTB said the situation in the second quarter of the year was influenced by the Covid-19 situation at that time. “At present, economic …

Owen Ryan SHANNON digital marketing company Core Optimisation is taking on 13 new staff, bringing the total number of employees to 30. Founded in 2015, it is now one of the country’s top digital transformation agencies, focusing on digital transformation strategy, search engine optimisation, paid search advertising, paid social media advertising and conversion optimisation. Limerick man Kieran O’Brien has joined the company as its Director of Marketing and Communications. He said that Core Optimisation is going through a period of rapid growth and it now has some remote workers. “It has kind of exploded in the last couple of months, and there’s a need to ramp up. The majority of people would be from Clare and Limerick, but there are people working from Portugal and Spain. One guy is working from Granada, one woman went home to Portugal when Covid came and she’s staying out there now. At the moment no one is really in the office, but when we …

THROUGHOUT the recession all Clare County Council meetings heard stories about the complete absence of funds, but with the country coming out of Covid, things are very different. At Tuesday’s Shannon Municipal District meeting, Director of Services Liam Conneally said that at the moment “a plethora of grants are being fired at us at the moment”. He said that the “Government are trying to assist businesses, trying to assist community groups, trying to assist local authorities.” One thing he said he was disappointed about was that other Municipal Districts were doing better at accessing supports than the Shannon area, but he said this could be addressed. Mr Conneally said that there are some very good reasons to be positive about the economy at the moment. “A lot of new job creation goes unannounced. Another 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 jobs that would be added to a company, they mightn’t want it announced but it is happening. There is …

Owen Ryan on the importance of the slots THE preservation of Shannon’s Heathrow slots is of fundamental importance to much of the region’s economy, and ensuring connectivity continues beyond next September should be a priority for the region’s politicians. More than 15 years ago – well before the precariousness of the slots really came into focus after they were transferred to Belfast – Shannon Town Council had called for them to be ring fenced for the Clare airport. However, that did not happen, still has not happened, and it is very possible that next autumn they could be lost once more. In 2007 Aer Lingus hoped to bury news of its decision to transfer four Heathrow slots from Shannon to Belfast, by leaking the information on the August Bank Holiday weekend. That didn’t work at all though, and even though the economy was booming at the time, a major campaign began, encompassing politicians, tourism industry figures, some leading multinational companies …

MORE than one in four people in Clare’s workforce are currently on the live register or receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. There are more than three times as many people in Clare getting support due to lack of employment than was the case in February 2020, before Covid-19 had reached Ireland. By any pre-Pandemic standards, the figures are incredible, reflecting a level of unemployment that would be unthinkable at any other time. This week Clare TD Michael McNamara has warned that Ireland’s approach to the pandemic over the past year will lead to economic ruin, while he compared the lack of dissenting voices to the latter years of the Celtic Tiger, when there was little criticism of economic policies that brought disaster. “The key is to work safely but we didn’t make an attempt to work safely, we just stopped working altogether. I’m not aware of any country in Europe that has dealt with it the way we have, which …

WITH the third wave of the pandemic having crushed economic activity, there is a general malaise and many businesses having closed, there is a sense of malaise and pessimism in many quarters right now. However, with a vaccine being distributed there are hopes that normal life will resume later this year and at Tuesday’s meeting of Shannon Municipal District, Clare County Council’s Director of Economic Development Liam Conneally said there is genuine cause for optimism about what may happen in the latter months of 2021. “In November and December and so far in January the number of planning applications lodged have been up on the last number of years and that is a good barometer of economic activity,” he said. Mr Conneally said that there is reason to “look forward to quarter three and quarter four with a degree of optimism,” and added that “the construction industry normally leads out on this”. Mr Conneally said that there are large projects …