Tuesday

21 July 2026

Good morning. Dublin has opened a direct route to Shanghai, Penneys is cutting prices, and Budget 2027 is already attracting a queue of tax-cut demands. Ryanair’s fares are staying low, PTSB’s sale is getting harder to call, and Irish companies are preparing for their next stage. Abroad, Andy Burnham is remaking the British cabinet while markets test how flexible his economic promises really are. Let’s get into it.

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1. Budget 2027 Faces A Growing Tax-Cut Queue. The Summer Economic Statement is expected to outline a Budget reportedly worth €9 billion to €10 billion, potentially including €1.5 billion in tax measures. Demands already include inheritance-tax reductions, a draught-beer tax credit, greater health-insurance relief and an enhanced credit for major VFX productions. Add proposed spending controls and the real contest is clear. Plenty of sectors want relief, but the Government still has to make the overall numbers hold.

2. Ryanair And PTSB Face External Judgment. Ryanair shares fell more than 7% before closing 4.55% lower at €24.78 after profit dropped 34% to €538 million, despite passenger growth. The airline expects fares to remain modestly lower through summer. At PTSB, Glass Lewis has advised shareholders to reject Bawag’s €1.62 billion offer, opposing ISS’s recommendation to accept. Both stories have moved from management arguments into judgment by markets and shareholders.

3. Dublin Opens A Direct Route To Shanghai. China Eastern has begun a three-times-weekly Dublin to Shanghai service using an Airbus A350-900, creating Dublin Airport’s longest scheduled nonstop route. It gives Irish companies, tourists, students and investors more direct access to China, and vice versa. This is big for trade with one of the world's superpowers. Primark’s decision to reduce prices as shoppers remain cautious shows the other side of trade: opening a market helps, but businesses still have to persuade customers to spend.

4. Irish Life’s Claims Bill Reaches €985 Million. Irish Life paid €985.3 million in protection and health-insurance claims in 2025, equivalent to almost €4 million every working day. That included €581 million across 974,663 health claims, with annual health payments rising 66% since 2021. Insurance Ireland now wants the private-health-insurance tax-relief cap increased from €1,000 to €1,500 per adult as claims costs place greater pressure on premiums.

5. Irish Companies Prepare For Their Next Stage. Select Technology Group has acquired eight UK iStore locations and its website in a deal valued by industry sources at around €25 million, adding 55 employees and taking its portfolio to 53 stores. Dublin-based Keenova Therapeutics, formerly Mallinckrodt, has also reorganised its balance sheet as it prepares for a possible stock-market flotation later this year. Select is buying scale, while Keenova is getting its finances ready to seek public capital, subject to market conditions.

Andy Burnham used his first Downing Street speech, delivered without a lectern or notes, to promise a new economic model, immediate cost-of-living measures and a ten-year plan later this year. He removed Rachel Reeves as chancellor, appointed former defence secretary John Healey in her place and moved Ed Miliband to the Foreign Office. Markets were less relaxed: UK ten-year gilt yields rose to 5.02% after Burnham said he would use flexibility within existing fiscal rules. Oil briefly topped $91 as the US struck Iran for a ninth night and Hormuz traffic slowed, before easing on renewed talk of negotiations. Brussels fined AliExpress €550 million, while Alphabet rose on reports of a more efficient Gemini server chip.

Legal & Regulatory

Ireland's legal and regulatory sector is under pressure on almost every front this week, with the state's justice, financial and market gatekeepers all facing questions about whether they can deliver what they've promised.

The Central Bank drew fresh criticism after details of its cost-cutting programme, first flagged in June, generated internal backlash this week over how the savings and potential voluntary redundancies are being handled, adding pressure just as governor Gabriel Makhlouf separately ordered an external review of the bank's enforcement regime following a High Court finding that one fitness and probity investigation was "irretrievably tainted" by process errors.

The legal aid crisis, which dominated last week's edition, escalated on two fronts rather than resolving. A Law Society survey found almost none of 260 solicitors surveyed intend to remain on the criminal legal aid panel under the new €520 flat fee, and civil legal aid solicitors separately threatened action of their own over fees, widening the dispute beyond criminal defence work into the civil courts.

On infrastructure, President Connolly signed the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Act into law, giving the Transport Minister power to amend or revoke the 32 million passenger cap once environmental assessments, allowed up to 28 weeks, are complete. It clears a legal pathway rather than lifting the cap itself.

Brussels-linked oversight also intensified, with Ireland's Data Protection Commissioners facing scrutiny this week and a EUR 550 million Digital Services Act fine landing on AliExpress, a reminder of the scale EU regulators are now willing to use.

Watch whether the Central Bank's cost-cutting details are formalised in the coming weeks, since staff reaction so far has been to the plan, not yet its implementation.

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

Tuesday – On the Move…

Prag Sharma, Chief AI Officer at Bank of Ireland: The former Citi AI executive will take up the newly created role in October, helping lead the bank’s responsible adoption of AI across the group.

Owen Pendlebury, Head of Cyber Security at Vodafone Ireland: Pendlebury will lead the company’s cybersecurity function, overseeing strategy, governance and risk management.

Cormac Gilroy, Banking and Finance Lead at EY Law Ireland: Based in Cork, Gilroy will establish and lead the firm’s new practice advising lenders, borrowers and sponsors on domestic and cross-border financing.

Katie Molony, Managing Director at Catalyst Media: The former Maximum Media and JOE Media UK chief executive will help lead the Irish media and events company’s next phase of growth and international expansion.

Spain has barely lifted the World Cup and RTÉ has already secured the free-to-air rights for 2030. Irish viewers can therefore relax about the football, although Sky’s planned purchase of ITV may leave the future home of Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Love Island less certain. Publicans, meanwhile, want a tax credit on draught beer. Football secured, soaps under review and the pint awaiting Budget approval: Ireland’s evening entertainment schedule is being renegotiated.

The Read – The Irish Times – Amid A Wall Of Blue Tote Bags, China's Vaulting AI Ambitions Come Into View

Denis Staunton reports from Shanghai's World Artificial Intelligence Conference, where Beijing startup Moonshot AI's new Kimi K3 model rattled markets by beating Anthropic's Claude Fable on front-end coding benchmarks. The piece explains what's different about China's approach: open-weight models pitched as public infrastructure, a new Shanghai-based AI governance body courting the Global South, and a regulatory contest with Washington reshaping how the technology gets built and sold worldwide. Link: Amid A Wall Of Blue Tote Bags, China's Vaulting AI Ambitions Come Into View  

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