Ireland’s 7x productivity gap and a €248m Irish business deal

30 September 2026

Good morning. Productivity, data centres and company expansion are doing most of the work this morning, with some very big gaps showing up in the numbers. We’ve also got a €248m Irish business deal, fresh retail insolvency figures and, further down, Mark Zuckerberg discovering one of the quickest routes into rural Ireland: funding the local GAA clubs. Let’s get into it.

1. Ireland’s Productivity Gap Is Hard To Ignore. Irish labour productivity reached €125.3 per hour in 2025, but the split underneath is enormous with €507.3 in foreign-dominated sectors versus €65.8 in the domestic economy. Domestic productivity actually fell 0.8% while the foreign-dominated side rose 14.2%. AI use showed a similar divide, at 43.6% among foreign-owned firms versus 16.3% among Irish-owned companies. Ireland’s reliance on FDI is well understood; these figures show just how much harder the domestic side of the economy still has to work to close the gap.

2. Irish Data Centre Expertise Meets A New Grid Test. Irish data-centre leaders and advisers told the Business Post that local firms are well placed to withstand any slowdown, having exported years of engineering, construction and manufacturing expertise abroad. They also expect grids to adapt as demand grows. Yet, at the same time, the CRU has now added a tougher domestic test, backing new rules requiring data centres to remain connected through certain system faults because of risks to grid security.

3. Irish Businesses Move Through Ownership And Trials. Last week we talked about the figures behind the restructuring of the Daft/DoneDeal parent, now it's been revealed that Australian property group REA is taking a 35% stake in Distilled with the transaction estimated at €248m. Poolbeg Pharma, meanwhile, reported £4.8m in cash at the end of June, raised another £3.5m in July and has now dosed eight of 30 participants in a cancer-treatment trial. Different businesses and very different stages of development, but both are useful examples of where Irish-founded businesses can build genuine strategic and commercial value.

4. Cork And Limerick Add To Multinational Expansion. Deutsche Börse says its 700-person Cork operation would grow further if its €5.3bn acquisition of Allfunds clears European Commission scrutiny, with Irish staff expected to play a role in integration. Whoop is separately taking another floor at Gardens International in Limerick, leaving only one floor available in what was viewed as a very risky development by Limerick County Council's Limerick 2030 body. The Cork jobs remain conditional, but both stories show multinational activity spreading through established regional Irish operating bases.

5. Retail Insolvencies Keep Costs In View. Irish corporate insolvencies reached 632 in the first nine months of the year, up from 618, while retail insolvencies jumped 54% from 69 to 106. However, here is at least one cost line moving the other way as the Central Bank will cut the Insurance Compensation Fund levy, often referred to as the "Quinn levy" to 0% from January. Useful relief, but modest beside the wider pressures showing up in the retail failure numbers.

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Europe’s energy cushion is getting thinner. IEA chief Fatih Birol warned that inventories, emergency oil releases and weaker Chinese imports have all helped restrain prices so far, but those supports are fading. Europe now gets almost 50% of its diesel from the US, making any proposed US export restriction a potentially serious problem for prices and supply. Australia is already responding to the inflationary pressure, raising rates to 4.6%, their highest in 15 years. US consumer confidence, meanwhile, fell 6.7 points to 81.9, its weakest since 2014. OpenAI has delayed the release of its Astra model while it strengthens safeguards following incidents involving models accessing external systems without authorisation, while smart-ring maker Oura became the latest company to postpone a US IPO despite previously attracting orders for roughly four times the shares available. Energy, consumers, AI and IPO markets are all showing less room for error.

Finance & Markets

Confidence was easy to announce in markets this week but itsnt so easy to verify.

Nvidia raised its buyback authorisation by $150bn to $235bn, the largest in US corporate history, to be completed through fiscal 2028. One analyst noted it is an authorisation, not a commitment. Nvidia says returns will come from excess free cash flow after strategic investments, a portfolio that includes Anthropic and Revolut. Shares rose about 2.6 per cent, a modest reaction for a $5.58tn company.

The Irish test case is GDL Management Group, which listed on Euronext Dublin on 31 August at €134.50 a share, a €134.5m market value. Its accounts and prospectus named two funding routes. A Deutsche Bank programme of up to €500m ran through a noteholder vehicle dissolved in April after telling the CRO it had never traded, and Deutsche Bank's London Branch is not a party. Maslow Capital was named as potential lender on €78.56m of facilities for Tullamore and Carlow schemes, 46.3 per cent of portfolio value. Maslow now says it will not proceed, having issued only non-binding heads of terms. GDL says its prospectus stated there was no commitment to lend and that it has several financing arrangements in place.

Novo Nordisk, as background from 21 September, fell 7.7 per cent after a capital markets day of "ambitions" rather than financial targets. Athlone makes the Wegovy pill, backed by €430m in March, and employs 260 people.

The OECD called rising bond yields a "major concern" for public finances on Wednesday. Davy expects remortgaging and switching, up about 40 per cent over the year, to continue as ECB rates climb.

Watch whether GDL names a replacement noteholder for the Deutsche-linked structure.

In Thursday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Health & Pharma.

Wednesday - By The Numbers

54%: The rise in Irish retail insolvencies during the first nine months of 2026, with the number increasing from 69 to 106.

312: New homes planned for the third phase of Cherry Orchard Point in Dublin 10. The wider development is intended to deliver 1,157 homes in total.

50%: The share of the global obesity-drug market that Novo Nordisk chief Mike Doustdar believes pills could capture by 2030. Novo currently has five oral treatments in development.

$8.5bn: The amount McDonald’s has outlined in franchisee support as part of its expanded growth strategy.

4.2%: The annual growth rate in lending to eurozone businesses, down slightly from 4.4% but still around its strongest level since mid-2023.

190m: The number of merchant locations worldwide that now accept American Express, with acceptance outside the US more than doubling in four years.

Irish motorists can now finance a PTSB PCP at 6.5% for a nearly new car, which means the traditional dealership question of “what colour were you thinking?” can now be followed by “and how emotionally attached are you to interest rates?”, pertinent because that's going to be one of the highest PCP rates on the market. Lindt, meanwhile, is cutting chocolate prices after weaker demand, so at least one expensive habit is becoming cheaper. Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg went gone further and donated €150,000 to the three GAA clubs nearest his new Waterford castle, €50,000 each. Nothing integrates you into rural Ireland faster than arriving with a castle and immediately sponsoring the parish.

The Read – Business Post (Requires Free Account) – Ireland's capital gains tax rate is holding back domestic investment

Deloitte's Daryl Hanberry argues that Ireland's 33 per cent capital gains tax rate, unchanged since 2012, traps capital in old investments by discouraging founders from selling and reinvesting. Deloitte wants it cut to 20 per cent, and the case rests on the following numbers: CGT raised €2.1bn of roughly €106bn in total tax in 2025, about 2 per cent, and receipts rose from €106m to €3.1bn between 1996 and 2006 after the late-1997 cut from 40 per cent, though Hanberry accepts asset values and growth helped. It is advocacy, not Government policy, but a sharp primer before the 6 October Budget. Link: Ireland's capital gains tax rate is holding back domestic investment

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