The Irish Independent reports that publicans who have been affected by the introduction of random breath testing can write off against tax the costs of providing "booze buses".
It has emerged that the running costs of providing the free service to customers can be offset against tax.
And up to €24,000 of the purchase price of the vehicle can also be claimed back from the Revenue Commissioners, so long as it is exclusively used to provide the night-link service.
Fianna Fail TD Seamus Kirk, who obtained the information from Finance Minister Brian Cowen, said he saw no reason why publicans in rural towns could not club together to provide the service.
"It's not just in their own interest - they're doing their bit for road safety by keeping people who are frequenting their premises away from the steering wheel of a car."
Although random breath testing has been credited with reducing the number of deaths on the road, publicans in rural have expressed concern at the drop in customer numbers.
Mr Kirk said that the provision of courtesy transport by publicans could help them to secure the future of their business.
"I think the pub is an integral part of society in Ireland and I think particularly the pubs in the rural areas who are worst hit should sit down and see what the potential is for co-operation."
Although publicans can also use their bus for private purposes, they must specify how much they use it for transporting customers and can only claim the tax allowance on this amount.
The Vintners Federation of Ireland, which represents around 6,000 rural publicans, said it was not a viable option.
"It's not practical for any publican to purchase a second vehicle solely to transport their customers," said its president, Paul Stevenson.
The VFI had proposed that publicans should be able to get a reduced rate of VRT on "people carriers", which could then be used for both personal and business needs. However, this has not been approved by the Department of Finance.
Mr Stevenson said the Government's €500,000 pilot scheme to provide night-time bus services in four or five rural areas was only a drop in the ocean.
Since the introduction of random breath testing, people in rural areas were frightened to drive home with one bottle of beer taken, he said.
"There is little or no transport available in rural Ireland, so people have no alternative but to stay at home. Older people have no social outlet. Surely it's not the responsibility of the licensed trade to provide public transport for people?"
The Irish Independent also reports that Gordon Brown faced renewed pressure over his leadership ambitions yesterday amid claims that he disregarded warnings over the sale of British gold reserves estimated to have lost the British Treasury £2bn.
Senior Bank of England figures are alleged to have warned that the decision to auction 400 tonnes of bullion between 1999 and 2001 risked losing money because of the low price of gold.
Since the auctions, the value of gold has trebled, leaving the Treasury with a £2bn loss on the deal, it was alleged.
The Treasury issued a strong denial of the claims.
Meanwhile, the British Chancellor is facing a renewed challenge to his leadership ambitions as former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, predicted that up to three challengers could vie with Mr Brown for the leadership.
Expectations
He warned that "the week between Tony Blair's resignation and the close of nominations for the leadership will be the longest of all."
Mr Clarke warned: "Time and again, this short period has turned expectations upside down."
Controversy over the Treasury's decision to sell gold reserves between 1999 and 2002 was re-ignited yesterday when the Sunday Times claimed that senior Bank of England officials warned of the risks of selling the gold in 1999.
Maurice Fitzpatrick, of accountancy giant Grant Thornton, said he had estimated that the Treasury lost £2bn on the deal, when he compared the rising gold price with the performance of the foreign currencies bought with the proceeds of the gold auctions.
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats yesterday criticised the timing of the gold sales.
But the Treasury insisted that the decision to sell the gold was "made in the proper way" and insisted that the then Governor of the Bank of England, Eddie George, had described the gold sale as a "perfectly reasonable portfolio decision", said a senior Bank of England.
George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said: "First it was discovered that Gordon Brown ignored advice on pensions; now it is revealed that he ignored advice on gold sales and the taxpayer has lost millions.
"The Chancellor is in danger of getting a reputation as someone who has very poor economic judgement."
Reserves
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, said: "The principle of diversifying British reserves out of gold was entirely sensible but the government seems to have got the timing spectacularly wrong.
"What we need is a proper analysis of the overall balance of gain and loss from the reserve diversification." Yesterday the Treasury insisted that the gold sales had been in the national interest.
A spokesman said: "This is a decision the Government made in the proper way.
"It has been examined by the National Audit Office, who concluded that the Treasury had met its objective selling in a 'transparent and fair manner while achieving value for money' and has been debated regularly in Parliament over the last few years, most recently four weeks ago. "All the issues have been dealt with before." He insisted that a string of other countries had also made similar decisions to sell gold reserves.
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, also defended the decision.
He said: "This decision was taken by ministers quite properly on the basis of full advice from Treasury officials at the time."
The Treasury also pointed to comments by senior bank official Ian Plenderleith in 2001 when he told MPs there was "no reason in our view to believe that the gold price was likely to rise in the foreseeable future and that you could get a better price by waiting".
The Irish Times reports that EBS non-executive director Ethna Tinney is to make a short address to the society's agm in Dublin today, before the vote on her re-election.
Ms Tinney, whose re-election the board does not support, hopes to take questions from the floor before the vote.
An EBS spokesman said there would be no difficulty in Ms Tinney making an address prior to the vote, or with questions being asked from the floor.
The agm takes place at 2pm today in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, and will begin with the chairman's review of the past year. The society has 280,000 members but votes rarely involve more than 5,000-6,000 members.
The society has been encouraging people to sign proxies for the past two weeks and media interest in the story may boost the number of members who take part. However, the issue is likely to be decided by less than 5 per cent of the overall membership.
The vote on Ms Tinney's re-election will be the first at the meeting, followed by a vote on increasing the remuneration of non-executive directors, and the re-appointment of the auditors, Ernst & Young, who are conducting the voting process.
Members were notified of the agm a number of weeks ago and sent proxy forms for the ballots. Subsequently, they were sent letters from Mr Moran and Ms Tinney, in which they both were able to outline their positions on Ms Tinney's election. Tomorrow's vote on non-executive remuneration will involve members being asked to approve an increase to €44,000 from €42,000 in the remuneration of ordinary non-executive directors. The membership will be asked to approve the payment of €65,000 per annum to new non-executive director Jim Ruane, who will chair the board audit and compliance committee.
It will be asked to approve the payment of €55,000 per annum to Cathal Magee, who will chair the board's risk committee. The chairman's remuneration will increase to €105,000 from €100,000 if the move is approved. Ms Tinney claims she is not being supported because of her stance on a number of matters but Mr Moran has said it is because the board has lost confidence in her.
The Irish Times also reports that Fianna Fáil will today outline how it will fund its election promises and manage the economy over the next five years with the launch of a major economic policy by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Finance Brian Cowen.
The publication of the multibillion-euro spending plan will be followed in the next two to three weeks with 15 policy documents which will form the basis of Fianna Fáil's general election manifesto.
Securing Prosperity - the Next Steps Forward will claim that a Fianna Fáil-led government would maintain a large budget surplus over five years. A source said last night that "conservative exchequer return assumptions" would underpin the policy.
Mr Ahern and Mr Cowen will emphasise maintaining a prudent approach to exchequer finances while delivering on a range of tax and spending commitments.
A source said last night that the plan would contextualise the Taoiseach's speech at the party's ardfheis and would represent the real start of its election campaign. "Everything will be costed and put into a five-year budgetary framework. We will be outlining what is affordable, and prudence will be central to everything we will outline.
"We are basing this on the same set of assumptions that underpin the National Development Plan. We will be saying what we outline is well within the range of what is possible."
As outlined at the ardfheis, the document will contain details of Fianna Fáil's tax policy, including its promises to reduce the lower tax rate and PRSI. But it is understood there will be no commitments given on stamp duty reform.
Other promises outlined by Mr Ahern at the ardfheis were 4,000 additional primary teachers, bringing the pension up to €300 a week, 2,000 more gardaí, 2,000 new hospital consultants and €300 million for 1,500 public hospital beds.
Personal health checks, new local injury clinics, reductions in secondary school class sizes and new schools were also pledged by the Taoiseach in his Citywest speech on March 24th.
The party said after the ardfheis that its tax cut proposals would cost €840 million a year over five years, but no other costings were outlined.
Today's document will also contain a commitment to review the regulation of the energy and the telecoms sectors to deal with concerns over rising energy costs.
In the next few weeks the party will release policy documents on health, education, crime, transport, the environment and science and innovation.
The joint Fine Gael-Labour election economic plan will be published on Thursday, several weeks after it was first expected.
The parties had failed to agree on the timing of its stamp duty reform proposals. It is understood that the plan will now not give any commitment on the timing of reform. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said on Friday in Cork that the question of whether stamp duty would be reformed in phases over three years or in one move would be addressed when in government.
Labour had expressed major concern that a three-year phasing would upset the property market and that people would delay buying property until rates were reduced.
The reforms involve abolition of the duty for first-time buyers of second-hand homes worth up to €450,000 and a simplification of rules, reducing the number of rates from seven to three.
The economic policy will also propose cutting the lower rate of tax from 20 to 18 per cent.
The Irish Examiner reports that a Cork horse racing fan had more reason than most to bask in the glory of an Irish victory in Saturday’s Grand National.
That victory, along with three others on the day, meant the lucky punter turned a €20 bet into almost €500,000.
Bernie Croker placed the bet in the Bantry office of the country’s leading bookmaking chain — Paddy Power — at noon on Saturday.
Mr Croker correctly predicted the winners of four races at both Aintree and Lingfield, including the Irish-trained 33/1 winner of the National, Silver Birch, which stayed on dourly in the closing stages to see off the fast-finishing McKelvey, with Slim Pickings third.
Mr Croker who lives in the suburb of Donnybrook with his wife and is well known at his work in the Paul Street Shopping Centre in Cork city, returned to the betting shop later in the afternoon to cheer home his last winner in the 5.15pm at Lingfield.
The three races which set Mr Croker up for the momentous win and massive pay out all took place at Aintree.
They were Silver Birch who won at 33/1, Kings Key (16/1) and Al Eile (12/1.
Mr Croker’s huge win was secured just after 5.15 when Paymaster General came with a sweeping late run to win the last at Lingfield at odds of 10/1.
Paddy Power spokesman, said: “It’s fantastic to see one of our regular punters winning a life-changing amount of money for a small bet. We wish him the very best of luck.”
The Financial Times reports that Barclays and ABN Amro have given themselves 48 hours to agree a merger after a rival consortium proposed a three-way break-up of the Dutch bank.
On Monday morning ABN Amro issued a summary of its first-quarter results, 10 days ahead of the scheduled profits announcement. Saying the move came “in the light of recent developments and in order to be fully transparent”, the bank unveiled a 30 per cent rise in earnings per share to 65 cents.
The board said “we are well on our way to beating the 2007 EPS target of €2.30”.
Barclays and ABN Amro are rushing to agree a deal before the end of the 30-day exclusive negotiating period, according to people familiar with the talks.
“It will be deal or no deal on Wednesday,” said one person familiar with the matter.
The discussions have been lent a new urgency by the break-up proposal put to ABN Amro on Friday by Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander of Spain and Fortis, the Belgo-Dutch banking and insurance group. The consortium, which believes it could offer more than Barclays, is seeking access to ABN Amro’s accounts. In its letter to the boards of ABN Amro it asked for the same due diligence information as was given to Barclays and expressed its “preference to work with ABN Amro to make an offer to ABN Amro shareholders”.
However, efforts by Barclays and ABN Amro to complete their deal may be complicated by the movement in the two banks’ share prices. ABN Amro’s share price opened 5.6 per cent higher on Monday at €35.52 as investors anticipated the possibility of a higher bid from the RBS consortium and approved the profit figures. Barclay’s share price also opened higher, trading 2.2 per cent at 760p in early business.
This could leave the Dutch bank’s board facing the prospect of being asked to recommend to shareholders a deal with Barclays that values the bank at less than its current share price.
Meanwhile, The Children’s Investment Fund, which has just under 3 per cent of ABN Amro’s shares, has threatened legal action against the bank’s supervisory board if it does not give the consortium access to the same information as Barclays. “If other potential bidders are not allowed to do due diligence, [the board] is in breach of its fiduciary duties,” said Christopher Hohn, managing partner at TCI.
The rival consortium has given little indication of how an offer might be structured, though analysts say this will involve ABN Amro shareholders receiving cash as well as shares in two or three of the bidding banks.
ABN Amro is thought to be sceptical about opening up the bank’s books to direct rivals when there is no certainty they will make an offer. It said it would consider the letter from the consortium but reiterated that its talks with Barclays were exclusive.
The first-quarter profits saw net operating profits increase by 25.5 per cent to some €1.23bn year-on-year. Net profit rose 29 per cent to €1.34bn, aided by €114m of gains from disposals in the US. Revenues
The FT reports that the long-haul network airlines are being challenged in unprecedented fashion by new aviation business models.
The upstart breed of low-cost carriers has made inroads into the traditional airlines’ short-haul markets, capturing a growing share and forcing legacy carriers to restructure drastically their operations to survive.
The attack in the long-haul sector has taken longer to materialise, but challengers are now stepping forward, a development that could drive the aviation industry into an era of wrenching change.
The gauntlet has been thrown down first in the business-class segment of the market, where the legacy carriers make the lion’s share of their profits.
Eos Airlines and Maxjet began flying 18 months ago in the London-New York market and have been followed early this year by Silverjet, a UK start-up on the same route, and by L’Avion flying between Paris and New York.
The London-New York route is the test bed for the latest aviation experiments, because it is the world’s busiest and most lucrative long-haul market with more than 4m passengers a year.
For several years, airlines have shied away from trying to make the low-cost airline business model work on long-haul routes.
Analysts have argued that passengers need costly in-flight service “frills” for routes taking many hours, and some of the key operating factors in the short-haul model, such as quick airport turnrounds are much tougher to achieve in long-haul.
Equally, bargain basement fares are already available from the legacy carriers themselves.
The conventional wisdom is set to be challenged, however, most notably by two of the world’s most successful low-cost aviation entrepreneurs, Tony Fernandes, chief executive of Malaysia’s Air Asia, and Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ireland’s Ryanair.
Mr O’Leary says his transatlantic assault could be launched in the next three to four years, while Mr Fernandes hopes his AirAsia X could take off before the end of the year.
Both entrepreneurs insist they will set up separate companies to run the budget long-haul operations. Mr O’Leary said last week: “The minute you put a long-haul business on top of a short-haul operation you kill it.”
There is still scepticism that economy long-haul carriers can be viable, however.
“Long-haul already has budget fares,” said Lawrence Hunt, founder of Silverjet. “Eighteen pounds per passenger per hour is already the average of the lowest [transatlantic] economy fares, which is slightly lower than Ryanair’s average on short-haul routes in Europe.
“If he is going to be offering £7 seats, he is going to be offering £7 service, which is untenable on long-haul flights lasting several hours.”
The New York Times reports that Intel is planning to announce a number of technology advances this week at a conference in Beijing, including an initiative that could give rise to a new class of wireless hand-held computers, according to several people close to the efforts.
The conference, the Intel Developer Forum, is held three times a year, and its convening in China underscores the growing significance of the Chinese market in the computer industry. Last month, Intel announced that it would build its first chip-making factory in China.
The effort on hand-held computers is aimed at creating what Intel is calling mobile Internet devices, larger than current palmtops and smaller than notebooks. They are seen as the next generation of the Ultra Mobile PC, introduced last year by Microsoft.
Although that class of computer has so far been commercially disappointing, both companies maintain that the growing reliance on mobile broadband access to the Internet will eventually create a large consumer market for data-oriented devices.
The Intel-designed hand-helds will be based on a new low-power version of the company’s X86 microprocessor designs code-named McCaslin, intended to increase the battery life of the ultra-mobile computer class. The new chips will come with wireless standards including Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth as well as satellite navigation and television tuner capabilities. The processor will consume an average of one-half watt of power, less than half of that used by current Intel chips.
Intel executives and others have described these computers — which are too big to fit into shirt pockets, but slide comfortably into jacket pockets — as 4-G computers, surpassing the capabilities of the latest cellphone technology known as 3-G, or third generation. They are intended to take advantage of wireless networks like those using WiMax technology, a long-range version of Wi-Fi that Intel is heavily promoting.
The devices are also the showcase for Intel’s effort to achieve drastic reductions in power requirements for future portable computers. The chief executive, Paul S. Otellini, said last year that Intel would have a tenfold reduction in its processors’ power consumption by the end of the decade.
One reason Intel is pushing its version of the wireless hand-held computer is that the market for data-oriented cellphones and wireless palmtops is now dominated by a competing chip standard controlled by ARM, a British microprocessor design firm. Intel hopes that by creating another class of devices independent of the cellphone market, it can displace the ARM-based hand-helds. It hopes to build support for its version of the hand-held computer in China based on partnerships with producers like Lenovo and Acer.
The computers foreseen by Intel, which will have 5- to 7-inch screens, will run a version of Microsoft’s Vista operating system that is designed for hand-helds, or possibly a version of the free Linux operating system. Intel has an active effort to develop a mobile version of Linux being led by a group run by Shane D. Wall, vice president for the company’s Mobility Group, according to an Intel business partner, who spoke on condition that he not be identified.
That software effort does not have the support of Mr. Otellini, who is concerned about incurring Microsoft’s wrath, the executive said. The two companies have a long history of tension over who controls the hardware and software direction of the “Wintel standard.” Intel has said it is supporting both operating systems.
The NYT also reports that Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don’t know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
But here’s one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.
Only 69 percent of people in the latest survey could come up with Dick Cheney when asked to name the vice president; in 1989, 74 percent could name Dan Quayle. Fewer could name the governor of their state (66 percent now compared with 74 percent in 1989) and fewer could name the president of Russia (36 percent now compared with 47 percent before).
In 1989, fully 81 percent of people knew that the United States had a trade deficit; today, only 68 percent knew.
The survey found that education was the best predictor of who would do well on the questions. “However,” it said, “despite the fact that education levels have risen dramatically over the past 20 years, public knowledge has not increased accordingly.” About 27 percent of Americans are college graduates.
The survey of 1,502 adults, conducted in February by the Pew Center (www.people-press.org), was based on answers to 23 questions and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Only eight people answered all 23 questions correctly, and five answered none correctly. The average number of right answers was 12.
Half of the people who did the best said they got their news from at least seven outlets a day.
The six news sources cited most often by people who knew the most about current events were: “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” (counted as one), tied with Web sites of major newspapers; next came “News Hour With Jim Lehrer”; then “The O’Reilly Factor,” which was tied with National Public Radio; and Rush Limbaugh’s radio program.
