250 Irish-made US jobs, regional expansion, and big corporate decisions

08 September 2026

Good morning. Irish businesses are still finding ways to grow, with DECI creating 250 US jobs, Davy expanding in Limerick and Arachas pushing further into the regions. We also have ESB weighing an exit from So Energy, Ryanair and PTSB heading towards big corporate decisions, and a Budget tax package that is looking a little less modest than advertised. Let’s get into it.

1. Irish Capability Travels Well. Limerick engineering firm DECI is creating 250 US jobs and has opened a Chicago office as it expands in data centres, life sciences and industrial infrastructure as Irish companies continue to expand their reach with data centre work. Back home, UCD Smurfit Business School has climbed from 33rd to 27th globally for its Masters in Management, with 84% of graduates employed within three months. Different exports, but both put a useful international number on Irish expertise.

2. Davy And Arachas Keep Building Outside Dublin. Davy has expanded its Limerick office after client numbers there nearly doubled and assets under management more than trebled over five years. Insurance broker Arachas has continued its massive Irish expansion having acquired Sligo-based Brian Mullins Insurance Brokers, taking its local team above 20. Regional professional services are becoming a bigger part of both firms’ growth plans, rather than an afterthought to Dublin.

3. ESB Weighs Its So Energy Exit. French firm, EDF, is among at least two bidders in talks to acquire ESB-controlled UK supplier So Energy, which serves around 300,000 households. The business reported £636.4m in 2024 turnover but remained loss-making, while ESB wrote off €21.8m of goodwill last year. No sale is agreed yet, but after years of losses the strategic question of 'keep backing it, or get out' is becoming obvious.

4. Two Big Corporate Questions Move Towards An Answer. Ryanair shareholders vote on Thursday on an amended remuneration policy covering Michael O’Leary’s new incentive arrangement, potentially worth about €150m if demanding profit or share-price conditions are met, with proxy advisers recommending shareholders vote against it. PTSB has a different decision ahead, with the High Court due to consider Bawag’s €1.62bn takeover on 27 October after shareholder approval. Both are well advanced, but neither question is settled yet.

5. Public Money Gets A More Difficult Audit. Minister for Public Expenditure, Jack Chambers, has acknowledged Budget 2027’s tax package is effectively closer to €2bn once the full-year cost of the hospitality VAT reduction is included, while Micheál Martin is receptive to scrapping stamp duty for qualifying first-time buyers. Bord Bia, meanwhile, has breached State spending rules for a second consecutive year. Plenty of businesses are being told to mind the numbers; State agencies definitely shouldn't get a different calculator.

Oil is back near $100 a barrel after a facility operated by Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, was hit in fresh strikes, keeping supply risk firmly in view even as Iran says an Oman-mediated agreement on the Strait of Hormuz may be close. Rate expectations are moving with it: Deutsche Bank now expects the ECB to hike in both September and December, while UBS has made the same call for the Fed after stronger US jobs data. German businesses are warning about investment and skills after the AfD’s record Saxony-Anhalt result, as Volkswagen prepares another 50,000 job cuts. France has a different production problem, with this year’s wine production forecast at 33.9m hectolitres, 17% below the recent average after heat and drought. Plenty moving, very little of it getting cheaper; even the wine is running out.

Legal & Regulatory

Legal & Regulatory in the last week dealt with procedural strain finally forcing outcomes in courtrooms, boardrooms and regulators' inboxes alike.

The criminal legal aid standoff hit a genuinely new stage as Dublin District Courts were effectively at a standstill on Friday, with more than 25 bench warrants issued in a single sitting after defendants failed to appear, while solicitors in Laois broke ranks and returned to work under Jim O'Callaghan's €520 flat-fee model. That crack in a previously united front is the story to watch rather than the original dispute itself. Separately, the civil legal aid side of the profession, including the Law Society and the Bar of Ireland, used a joint statement to press for "meaningful investment" in Budget 2027, citing waits of more than a year for a first Legal Aid Board appointment.

Competition enforcement also took a step up. The CCPC opened a full Phase 2 investigation into Uniphar's completed acquisition of Limerick software firm TouchStore, having used its below-threshold "call-in" power, and interim measures already require the two businesses to operate at arm's length while the review proceeds, a reminder that deal completion no longer guarantees regulatory closure.

Financial-crime data added big numbers to the sector's enforcement narrative. The Central Bank's annual fraud statistics showed reported payment fraud losses rose 27 per cent to €179 million in 2025, with authorised push-payment scams, where victims are manipulated into approving their own transfers, now accounting for 45 per cent of losses by value.

Corporate litigation featured Irish-founded Kalak vodka, which is suing Starbucks in a Washington state court for at least $238,000 in damages after the coffee chain allegedly dropped the brand without contracted notice, a small but pointed test of how enforceable Irish suppliers' contracts are against much larger US partners. Irish Rail moved further still, firing IT contractor Indra over its stalled €50 million train-control project and preparing a formal legal claim for damages, with a default notice expected to issue by mid-October.

Watch whether O'Callaghan responds to the Laois defection with fresh talks before more firms follow suit.

In Wednesday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Finance & Markets.

Tuesday – On the Move…

Maureen Walsh, Ibec: The DeCare Dental Insurance managing director becomes Ibec president for 2026-27, succeeding AIB chief Colin Hunt. Walsh has sat on Ibec’s board since 2022 and chairs its Digital and AI Committee.

María Pobre, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine Ireland: Appointed general manager of commercial operations, putting her in charge of J&J’s Irish innovative-medicines commercial business. She brings more than 20 years in healthcare, most recently as senior franchise director at J&J Spain.

Tom O’Brien, Perigus Energy: The former chief executive of Brookfield Renewables’ European business has been named independent chair of Cork-headquartered Perigus, which has 668MW of installed renewable capacity across Europe and a further 160MW under construction.

Mike Williams, Harris Group: Appointed managing director of Harris Rentals, the group’s new commercial-vehicle rental business. Williams is a 40-year truck-rental industry veteran and former Dawson Group executive.

Joe Keating, Datalineo: Appointed chief operating officer at the Dublin data-analytics firm after almost 30 years in technology, including senior roles at Slalom, DataBare and Glantus.

Ticketmaster is back causing Oasis-related stress, this time in Dublin District Court, where it faces two charges over how prices and platinum tickets were presented during the 2024 sale. Two years on, the queue has finally reached the legal system. Katie Taylor’s final fight, meanwhile, peaked at 1.6m viewers on RTÉ, with 552,000 more streams on RTÉ Player and a 74% audience share, which is about as close as modern Ireland gets to agreeing on anything and a good example of decency in ticketing... And if all that has inspired a career change, the NTA is offering up to €133,775 for someone to lead Ireland’s new transport security force. At least you'd probably be in an office than facing the hardship that you wouldn't wish on an enemy.

The Read – The Guardian – ‘We're plausibly close to crossing the line': are warnings of uncontrollable AI coming true?

Robert Booth surveys a week in which OpenAI declared GPT-6 Astra had crossed into artificial general intelligence, days after a swarm of its own agents hacked into software store Hugging Face. Oxford governance expert Robert Trager warns the world may be nearing "recursive self-improvement", while Anthropic has separately admitted its systems are "not perfectly aligned". UK MPs are pushing for legal AI kill switches, and even OpenAI's Sam Altman concedes cybersecurity risks demand urgent action. It is a sobering, well-sourced look at how safety concerns are catching up with capability claims. Link: ‘We're plausibly close to crossing the line': are warnings of uncontrollable AI coming true?

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