Monday

Good morning. Ireland is starting the week with rural investment showing its return, housing costs stacking up, Ryanair choosing continuity and Budget 2027 already gathering a queue. Abroad, Britain is watching Downing Street and US-Iran talks are moving just enough to keep oil markets guessing. Let’s get into it.

1. Rural Investment Shows Its Return. A report says the Western Investment Fund’s €31.75m State backing has helped generate €10.8bn in economy-wide revenue, €635m back to the Exchequer and nearly 100,000 job-years. This was achieved despite Kilkenny becoming the first county to with 100% broadband coverage on the back of the National Broadband Plan rollout. Add Future Cast’s €3.25m Leitrim R&D hub and the evidence is building that rural investment can pay off when it is properly backed. Rural Ireland does not need sympathy; it needs a chance.

2. Irish Investment Splits By Execution. Glanbia shares have more than doubled in just over a year after stronger earnings guidance and momentum in its nutrition businesses. Greencore has gone the other way, with investors still weighing the cost and complexity of its £1.2bn Bakkavor deal. Hub Packaging is also preparing another growth push. Capital is available, but the market is rewarding proof and punishing homework.

3. O’Leary Signed On Into His Seventies. Ryanair has extended Michael O’Leary’s contract to 2032, with a potential payout worth more than €100m if profit or share-price targets are hit. That keeps succession parked while O’Leary is still commenting on flat summer sales, oil risk, rejected approaches and luggage rules. Ryanair has not just kept its chief executive; it has kept its loudest operating manual.

4. Housing Costs Stack Up. The apartment subsidy scheme has reportedly used about 70% of its budget while reaching roughly half of its planned housing target, while Evara has secured more than €50m of land with potential for around 1,000 homes. SIRO also warns a broadband infrastructure proposal could add €390m to housing costs. Ireland keeps finding land, schemes and connections; the missing piece is still affordable delivery.

5. Budget 2027 Gets Its Queue. Flogas is raising residential electricity prices by 10.9% and gas by 11.8% from July, adding close to €400 a year for some customers. A report also says the average Irish homeowner is now a millionaire, while inheritance-tax cuts and new retirement-age rights are moving up the agenda. Budget 2027 is already being asked to ease bills, protect wealth, extend working lives and still look disciplined.

Keir Starmer is expected to set out a timetable for leaving Downing Street today, with Andy Burnham waiting in the wings after his Makerfield win put Labour’s leadership crisis into full view. Watch this today: Britain may be heading for its seventh prime minister since Brexit, with markets already watching sterling, gilts and fiscal policy. US-Iran talks also restarted after Friday’s disruption, then were shaken by new Trump threats, but ended with mediators pointing to a 60-day roadmap and technical talks continuing this week. Brent fell below $80 as supply fears eased, though Hormuz and sanctions still make the relief fragile. At the start of the week, it’s the actions of the global leaders raising all the questions.

Tech & AI

Tech & AI's story today isn't access; it's capacity. The tools are switched on but the harder question is whether Ireland has the power, security and discipline to run them, and how much it should trust the capability claims being made about them.

Bank of Ireland says its Featurespace-built fraud system has cut attempted payment fraud by 30% and customer losses by 25% since 2024, with false positives down 87% and alert volumes down 85%. That's AI capacity working as intended.

The workplace version is scaling fast. Microsoft has made Copilot Cowork generally available, its fastest-growing feature in the Frontier programme's history. The shift is from drafting to fully completing tasks, billed on usage, with spend caps built in. But Accenture's new Ireland research shows the share of working hours AI could augment has jumped from 40% to 82% in eighteen months, while only one in ten organisations say they're actually embedding it and seeing value. Access keeps outpacing oversight.

The Equinix hydrogen pilot at its Blanchardstown site, covered here last week, matters less for the technology than for what success would unlock: if hydrogen backup power proves reliable, it gives data centre operators a way to expand without leaning further on a constrained grid, potentially easing the planning objections that have made new developments increasingly contested.

Security capacity is the sharpest gap. New eir/Microsoft/UL research puts cyberattack costs for Irish SMEs at €3.4bn a year, driven by everyday disruption rather than big breaches, roughly €50,000 per firm. Accenture has spent $4.18bn buying OT security firms over AI-driven threats, while Irish cyber experts debate how real Anthropic's "Mythos" model actually is. That scrutiny lands harder given Anthropic itself recently called for a coordinated way to pause frontier development if AI begins improving itself faster than society can manage, while warning that a unilateral pause would do little good on its own.

Watch point: whether capacity, power, security, oversight, can catch up with how fast access has spread.

In Tuesday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Legal & Regulatory.

Monday - The Weekend Round-Up…

The weekend carried on several of Friday’s stories rather than starting a clean page. ICTU said the next public-service pay deal must be closely linked to inflation, keeping end-June talks under Budget pressure. Manna grounded its Irish drone deliveries following refusal for Dundrum air-deliveries expansion, with founder Bobby Healy saying R&D and manufacturing will stay here, but product rollout now has to move to more air delivery friendly markets like the US. SpaceX shares fell more than 6% as post-IPO heat cooled, while Ukraine’s EU path and US-Iran talk both stayed live.

The World Cup’s hydration breaks are meant for player welfare, but three-minute pauses also look a lot like ad revenue, which is handy when Gianni Infantino is trying to attend two matches a day by private jet. The climate optics are not helped by Europe sweating through heat alerts, with France restricting alcohol around Fête de la Musique in Paris. For anyone jealous, Business Plus has a summer wine guide for Ireland’s next 20+ degree day.

The Read – Silicon Republic – How Returning to Education Mid-Career ‘changes your thinking’

Today’s Tech & AI Spotlight covered the tools, but this is about the people expected to make them useful. Silicon Republic speaks to Mohammed Azharuddin Khan, a Dell Technologies project manager who returned to education through Technology Ireland ICT Skillnet’s MSc in Leadership, Innovation and Technology. The programme has produced 300 graduates since launching in 2006, and four fully funded places are now being awarded. Useful if you are thinking about upskilling, managing people through tech change, or trying to stay useful while the software gets louder. The Link: How returning to education mid-career ‘changes your thinking'

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