Ireland

A package of measures to help businesses contend with soaring energy prices will likely include low-cost loans and grants targeted at the sectors most affected, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Varadkar said last week that the bulk of Ireland's budget surplus, expected to reach up to 5 billion euros ($4.99 billion) or around 2% of national income, should be spent on one-off measures to help consumers and businesses with rising prices.

The governor of the Irish Central Bank has warned the Government that budgetary measures to cushion the impact of inflation need to be temporary and targeted to limit the risk of fueling further price growth, the Irish Times reported. In a pre-budget letter to the Minister for Finance, Gabriel Makhlouf also highlighted the significant budgetary risk posed by corporation tax receipts, suggesting the public finances were now “highly exposed to business decisions of a small number of firms”.

Former Trinity Biotech chief executive Brendan Farrell, co-founder of insolvent medical diagnostics company HiberGene Diagnostics, is looking for potential buyers for the business in a last-ditch effort to save it, the Irish Times reported. Mr. Farrell, who also served as chief executive of HiberGene until he resigned from the board of the company in 2018, told the Irish Times on Friday that he had spoken to one Irish investor and two from outside the country with a view to securing funding to keep the business afloat.

The volume of retail sales fell by 8.1 per cent in the year to July as sales of motors, food, beverages, and tobacco all saw double digit reductions despite the easing of the Covid-19 emergency, the latest data from the Central Statistics Office shows, the Irish Times reported. Four sectors showed an annual increase in the volume of sales. The largest of these was in bars where sales soared by 56.8 per cent compared with July 2021 when some Covid-19 restrictions still applied. However, bar sales remained 8.4 per cent lower than pre-Covid-19 levels in February 2020.

Endo International Plc filed for bankruptcy yesterday after reaching a $6 billion deal with some of its creditors, as the U.S. drugmaker seeks to settle thousands of lawsuits over its alleged role in the country's opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. The pharmaceutical company is the latest to file for chapter 11 to address opioid claims. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, filed in September 2019, while Mallinckrodt Plc, a generic opioid manufacturer, recently emerged from bankruptcy.

Endo International PLC, a pharmaceutical manufacturer facing thousands of lawsuits alleging it fueled the opioid addiction crisis, said Tuesday that it is likely to file for bankruptcy imminently, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company said that it is in negotiations with a group of senior lenders that it expects will result in an agreement for a chapter 11 filing. Endo also said that it is in discussions with opioid litigants as well as other creditors but didn’t say that it has reached a proposed deal with them.

Brexit-related regulatory burdens impacted more than half of medium-sized businesses in the Republic in 2020, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Irish Times reported. The agency’s latest Global Value Chain participation survey found that 54 per cent of businesses here with 50 or more employees were hit by new regulations arising from the UK’s EU exit. Despite the red tape, the UK remained the most popular location for Irish businesses for both global purchasing and supplying of goods/materials and services.

An Irish developer has had €7.7 million of debts written off under a court-approved personal insolvency arrangement (PIA), the Irish Times reported. Mr. Justice Alexander Owens approved the application made on behalf of Co Roscommon-based Ronan Meeley and an interlocking PIA for his wife, Niamh Meeley. Mr. Meeley (52), who is now employed as a hotel maintenance worker, had debts totalling €8.2 million arising from his construction and development businesses that entered receivership during the recession.

Irish developer Michael O’Flynn has been blocked by the High Court from raising any objections to the personal insolvency agreement of a neighbour John O’Driscoll over a guarantee on a €2.2 million loan, the Irish Times reported. The developer who contended that Mr. O’Driscoll from Ovens, County Cork, was allegedly not insolvent, failed in his bid to overturn a Circuit Court ruling that he had no right to be heard on the matter. In the High Court, Mr. Justice Alexander Owens upheld the Circuit Court ruling that because Mr. O’Flynn who had been invited by Mr.

Mallinckrodt plc on Monday announced that it expects to complete its reorganization process, emerge from Chapter 11 and complete the Irish Examinership proceedings in the coming days, according to a press release. On the effective date of emergence, all of Mallinckrodt's existing ordinary shares will be canceled pursuant to the company's reorganization plan and the Irish scheme of arrangement. Mallinckrodt expects to issue at emergence 13,170,932 new ordinary shares to its guaranteed unsecured noteholders in accordance with the provisions of the plan and the scheme.