👗From grid constraints to €6,395 dresses. We're so multifaceted.

18 September 2026

Good morning. Hiring, tax, Glanbia and Europe’s single market lead today, while Property & Energy gets the deeper treatment that deserves a read. Then, because it is Friday, we somehow end up discussing €6,395 dresses and parking charges. Let’s get into it!

1. Irish Firms Are Still Hiring, Just More Selectively. Irish job postings have fallen more than 9% this year, but IT.ie is investing €3.5m to add 50 roles and grow its workforce from 60 to 110, while water-management firm Lowflo plans 150 hires by 2030 from a current team of 50-plus. The broad hiring boom has cooled; however, specific companies with expansion plans are still adding people.

2. H&MV Puts Its US Expansion Into A Higher Gear. H&MV Engineering plans 1,000 US jobs over five years as it expands engineering, construction and project delivery from its Dallas base. We already knew America was becoming central to the Limerick firm's growth with the company having bought Texas-based Cooke Power Services earlier this year and was valued at €1.4bn following a €750m Exponent-led investment. The fresh part is seeing that strategy turn into scale.

3. Corporation Tax Gives Budget Arithmetic Another Lift. Department of Finance officials are working on the basis that corporation-tax forecasts for 2026 and 2027 will be revised upwards, with this year's receipts expected to beat the existing €35.3bn forecast by a wide margin. That potentially gives Government more room before Budget 2027, although the planned package remains €8.5bn and the State's reliance on a small number of companies is getting larger, not smaller as it continues to use unpredictable inflows for current spending.

4. Glanbia's Rally Meets A More Sceptical Market View. Glanbia shares dropped 7.56% to €19.93 after Bank of America resumed coverage with an underperform rating, arguing the stock looks expensive in a competitive whey-protein market. The context matters since H1 revenue rose 7% and the shares remain 37.6% higher this year. A strong operating run has not stopped investors asking how much of the good news is already in the price.

5. Makhlouf Wants Europe To Make Scale Easier. Central Bank governor Gabriel Makhlouf says Europe is still leaving too much economic potential on the table because its markets for goods, services, banking and capital remain fragmented. He singled out Europe's much smaller late-stage venture-capital market, which can push growing firms elsewhere for funding and listings. His argument is essentially that a single market doesn’t work as well when capital still faces national borders.

Canada’s push for a closer relationship with the EU has already annoyed Washington, with Donald Trump threatening tariffs if he considers the proposed “associate membership” arrangement hostile to the US. Mark Carney says Canada will decide its own partnerships. The Bank of England held rates at 3.75%, although three policymakers voted for a hike as inflation reached 3.1%. Brussels is meanwhile asking China to voluntarily limit hybrid-car exports to 15% of the EU market as it tries to contain another trade dispute on the back of its "Made in EU" move. Global bond yields eased after the Fed’s rate increase, with the US 10-year slipping back below 5%. For Ireland, that means another awkward mix of trade exposure, higher-for-longer borrowing costs and pressure on the open European market its exporters depend on.

Property & Energy

The numbers are improving in parts of the system, but Friday’s property and energy picture is about what happens after something gets approved or started.

Planning permissions for dwellings jumped 60% year-on-year in Q2, with apartment approvals more than doubling. That is a meaningful improvement in the future housing pipeline. The nearer-term delivery numbers are less straightforward since 16,679 homes were completed in the first half of 2026, up 11%, but Q2 completions fell 3.6%, apartment output dropped 12% and Dublin completions were down 16%. Almost 19,000 homes were commenced in the first half, so there is plenty moving through the system, but the question is how quickly that converts into completed stock.

MetroLink has at least moved a stage further. Government has approved the 19km project to proceed to detailed tendering, with a €10.1bn base delivery cost and a wider €14.44bn to €17.49bn range once inflation and risk are included. That is a real process step after years of planning, although tender approval is still a long way from trains running beneath Dublin.

Energy has its own version of the same utilisation problem. Around one-tenth of Ireland’s renewable electricity generation was lost to grid constraints last year, meaning power was available but the system could not always accommodate it. More housing permissions, major transport investment and additional, badly needed, renewable generation are all useful, however, converting each of them into capacity people and businesses can actually use is where the economics continue to struggle.

There is at least a more serious attempt now to improve the machinery behind it all. Planning reform is bringing longer development plans, statutory decision timelines and stronger national-local alignment, while the CRU has approved up to €18.9bn of grid investment through 2030, including major transmission and substation upgrades. The test from here is whether those reforms translate into more usable capacity.

In Monday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Tech & AI.

Friday – The Week in Summary…

This was a week when a lot of Irish business assumptions met harder numbers. Revolut’s Irish lending passed €1bn, MetroLink finally moved into detailed tendering and the Fed delivered the rate rise markets had been expecting. At home, job postings showed a cooler labour market even as today showed IT.ie, Lowflo and H&MV kept hiring, while stronger corporation-tax expectations gave Budget arithmetic a late-week lift, for better or worse. The economy is still expanding, but the week gave a clearer picture of where that growth is really showing up, and where it is becoming harder to sustain.

It's fashion guys... We don’t usually do fashion and shopping here but here we go! Brown Thomas says autumn is about “polished ease”, which apparently includes a €530 De La Vali mini dress, a €5,195 Erdem x Barbour gilet coat and, for anyone still feeling under-accessorised, a €4,450 Dries Van Noten coat. Dundrum is adding another 25 shops, Stripe is making checkout smoother for Brown Thomas and Arnotts, and Blanchardstown is introducing paid parking, following Dundrum and the infamous introduction of the same at Liffey Valley. So, it appears Irish retail has identified the problem: buying a €6,395 Erdem dress was simply too friction-heavy. But luckily for "everyone", Stripe has come to the rescue, and the parking meter can finish the job. Great, maybe. 

The Read – Business Post (Requires Free Account) – €1.3bn plan: Air Baltic's difficulty is Ryanair's opportunity

Air Baltic filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, battered by fuel costs and travel disruption, and plans to shrink its fleet by a third by year end. Ryanair moved fast, unveiling a five year, $1.6bn proposal to double traffic across Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania if governments cut aviation taxes and airport charges. Latvia gets winter growth; Estonia and Lithuania face a 25% capacity cut over "uncompetitive" costs. A rival's collapse turned into a concrete expansion pitch, numbers and conditions attached. Link: €1.3bn plan: Air Baltic's difficulty is Ryanair's opportunity

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