Ticketmaster’s GAA deals; Mallusk’s stadium specialist; and minimum wage jobs

Ticketmaster Ireland has been offering GAA county boards cash incentives to sign up or renew contracts with the digital ticket sales agent, internal communications show. Barry O’Halloran writes that the online ticket seller says it is in compliance with a 2020 High Court order limiting its use of exclusive deals and upfront payments, following an investigation by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

Sixty-five years ago family-owned Brett Martin was fitting out farm sheds; now it is a £200 million-plus business providing specialist plastic roofing for stadiums worldwide from its Mallusk base in Antrim. Ellen O’Regan spoke to Paul Martin, the third generation of his family to run the business.

An ESRI study on the quality of minimum wage jobs find they tend to involve working for longer at more unsociable hours in more precarious jobs without trade union protection. Colin Gleeson reports.

Ireland’s workforce has been the most enthusiastic in Europe in adopting hybrid work, according to a new study, though, Colin writes, we are still well short of the Netherlands in terms of the overall numbers working mostly from home.

“For the first time in five years, Government will be creating their budget without being under the shadow of an immediate impending crisis,” Chambers Ireland says. It is calling for Budget 2024 to address the housing crisis, infrastructure shortfalls and the slow pace of Ireland’s green transition.

Ireland ranks among the countries most vulnerable to energy shocks, despite leading the globe for energy efficiency, according to a new Euromonitor study, writes Barry O’Halloran. It comes as new figures show July’s miserable weather delivered 50 per cent more wind power to the energy grid here than it did last year.

In Personal Finance, Joanne Hunt comes up with retrofit projects that can deliver savings on your bills without having to commit to the big cost of a full upgrade.

And in Q&A, we answer questions from a reader worried that the executors to their wills might be getting too old for the work involved and a son who will inherit shares form his father but is confused on how to value them.

Finally, in her media column, Laura Slattery says the unexpected return of a print version of music magazine NME points to the future for print media more generally.

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