🚋Luas gets a new operator

02 September 2026

Good morning. Cairn Homes is putting another €50m on the table for shareholders after a first half that saw revenue jump 60%, while two very different Irish transport industry operations have changed hands, with Expedia completing its CarTrawler takeover and KeolisAmey taking over the Luas. Worth Your Time is detailing the data which informs emerging trends in jobs, work, and wages Let's get into it.

1. Cairn Homes Launches A €50m Share Buyback. Cairn Homes has started a new programme to repurchase up to €50m of its own shares, with Goodbody and Deutsche Bank carrying out the purchases on its behalf. The move follows a strong first half in which revenue jumped 60% to €455.5m, operating profit rose 75% to €74.8m and 1,139 homes were sold. Its closed and forward order book has also reached 5,020 homes worth €1.89bn. The buyback can run until September 2027, with repurchased shares intended to be cancelled, putting another sizeable chunk of capital on course to be returned to shareholders.

2. Two Big Handovers Land In Irish Transport. Expedia has completed its acquisition of Dublin travel-tech firm CarTrawler, creating a liquidity event for employees through its staff-wide equity scheme. The sale price has not been disclosed, although sources put total shareholder proceeds over TowerBrook’s ownership at close to €500m. On the ground, KeolisAmey has also formally taken over operation of the Luas under a €1.75bn contract, ending Transdev’s 22-year run since the introduction of the service. Different deals, but both put major Irish transport firms under new stewardship.

3. Three Irish Firms Put Expansion Plans Into Motion. Full Health Medical has raised €3m from Elkstone, Enterprise Ireland and angel investors as it shifts fully towards SaaS after processing more than 500,000 medicals. Viatel has acquired UK network specialist EDNX to deepen its healthcare, pharma and life-sciences offering, while construction consultancy KSNPM has opened a new Blanchardstown office and expects headcount to pass 200 by year-end. Three different routes to scaling, all backed by fresh investment, acquisition or physical expansion.

4. Fórsa Members Give Leaders A Strong Industrial-Action Mandate. Some 96.6% of Fórsa members who voted backed industrial action, on a 72.6% turnout among more than 80,000 workers balloted. The mandate can extend to strike action, but no strike date has been set. With SIPTU members also backing action and the previous public-service pay agreement expired since June, pressure is building for substantive talks on what replaces it.

5. Irish Inflation Climbs To 3.4% As Energy Costs Bite. Ireland’s flash annual inflation rate rose from 3.1% in July to 3.4% in August, with energy prices up 11.8% year-on-year and 4.3% in a month. The underlying picture was less severe, with inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food easing to 2.6%. That split here is important because the latest acceleration is being driven heavily by energy rather than a uniform strengthening in prices across the economy. Nevertheless, this is similar to EU numbers and that's paving the way for September rate hikes which will increase borrowing costs throughout the Union. 

Shein’s $1.7bn Hong Kong IPO has received a lukewarm welcome, with shares falling as much as 10% on debut before recovering close to their offer price, a far cry from the roughly $100bn valuation attached to the company in 2022. France is also tightening the screws on ultra-fast fashion, introducing penalties of up to €12 per item on platforms including Shein and Temu. Elsewhere, BYD’s overseas sales surged 134.5% year-on-year in August to 189,466 vehicles, while Wall Street banks including Morgan Stanley and Citi are pushing major law firms to pass on some of the savings created by AI. Oil is back above $92 a barrel too, adding another layer of concern around inflation and borrowing costs as markets watch renewed risks to Middle Eastern supply.

Finance & Markets

Markets are caught between a “hawkish” Federal Reserve and a reignited Middle East oil shock, and Ireland's borrowing costs are catching the spillover just as the state returns to the bond market.

Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh unsettled investors at Jackson Hole by insisting inflation is not meaningfully slowing, pushing US ten-year yields above 4.75 per cent, their highest since January 2025, with markets now pricing roughly a seventy per cent chance of a rate hike at the Fed's September 16 meeting. JPMorgan's trading desk has turned cautious on US equities as a result. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, rejected suggestions of a rift with Warsh over his bond buyback intervention, even as fresh US strikes on Iranian targets sent Brent back above $91.

The Irish landing is the NTMA's auction on Thursday, targeting one to 1.25 billion euro from bonds maturing in 2032 and 2035. Cantor Fitzgerald has urged the agency to break from its usual ten-year benchmark habit given Ireland's already long average debt maturity and that’s what they’ve done, offering 6 and 9 year bonds. Irish ten-year yields have edged back toward 3.4 per cent, still underpinned by Moody's recent upgrade to Aa2. Separately, 26 credit unions holding almost nine billion euro in combined assets have appointed an independent board, including former NTMA and PTSB finance chiefs, to build a new Corporate Credit Union structure once Central Bank regulation clears, aimed at unlocking more SME and mortgage lending. July retail sales rose 1.3 per cent, a steadying signal for domestic demand.

Watch Thursday's auction pricing for the clearest read yet on how much the global bond selloff is bleeding into Irish borrowing costs.

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

Wednesday - By The Numbers

€14.6bn: Apple’s Irish tax bill for 2025, including €10.51bn from the EU tax case, underlining just how concentrated Ireland’s corporate-tax base remains.

€389m: Development land traded in Ireland during H1, up 37%, but residential sites accounted for only €166m, or 43% of the total.

6,000: The estimated shortage of engineers and technicians Ireland faces, with housing, energy and transport projects competing for the same scarce skills.

€180m: The international reality-TV production spend secured by Ireland so far this year following the introduction of its new unscripted-production tax credit.

500: The number of Primark stores now operating worldwide. The retailer, which began on Dublin’s Mary Street in 1969, now has a presence across 19 countries.

€455.5m: Cairn Homes’ first-half revenue, up 60%, alongside a 75% jump in operating profit to €74.8m and 1,139 homes sold.

Popeyes is bringing 60 jobs and a lot of fried chicken to Dundrum, while Krispy Kreme Ireland has just posted a second straight annual loss. Tough week to be a doughnut within walking distance of a what's an admittedly good chicken sandwich.

Revolut, meanwhile, has launched AIR, its new AI assistant, which is brave territory for a company whose customer-service chat already has a certain… reputation.

Ryanair is getting in on it too, hiring someone to test and improve its GenAI chatbot. So yes, somewhere out there, a person is about to get paid to argue with Ryanair’s chatbot for a living. Finally, a job Ireland has been training for.

The Report – RTÉ Brainstorm – What data tells us about emerging trends in jobs, work and wages

Drawing on the CSO's labour force data, this analysis maps how work in Ireland is actually changing. Average weekly earnings passed 1,000 euro for the first time since records began in 2008, while close to a million people report working from home at least some of the time, even as that figure has slipped over the past year. Non-Irish nationals accounted for over 61 per cent of employee growth between 2019 and 2024, concentrated in administration, hospitality and information sectors. It is a useful corrective to headline employment figures, showing the structural shifts sitting underneath them. Link: What data tells us about emerging trends in jobs, work and wages

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