Trump tariffs give markets a chance to cut irritable rules for local companies

JOE LYNAM (00:30):

Turning to the impact of this trade war on Ireland, the government here has set up a dedicated team to work through Enterprise Ireland to advise exporters how best to navigate these trade headwinds. That includes one-to-one advice and the Department of Enterprise says it's been preparing for this tariff war for a while. And it comes as the government admits that if pharma were to be included into tariffs, then 98% of Irish exports to America would be covered by the Trump tariffs. The enterprise minister Peter Burke joins us now on the line. Good morning, minister.

PETER BURKE - ENTERPRISE MINISTER (01:23):

Good morning, Joe.

JOE LYNAM (01:23):

Now, apart from verbal advice, will you be offering something a little bit more tangible to exporters such as, I dunno, export guarantees or some sort of risk sharing?

PETER BURKE - ENTERPRISE MINISTER (01:34):

So first of all, enterprise Ireland have established a dedicated team within the agency, really supporting so many of our companies exporting. And there are a number of areas where we can support client companies, provide a necessary resource guidance, strategic help, which is very important at this time. Obviously in the first instance we can provide consultancy advice and support to get that advice. It's a very significant grant of up to 70,000 euro there available for that. And secondly then in relation to market diversification, which the agency has always been working closely with so much of our indigenous sector on, and we have both the market discovery fund and the Strategic Marketing Review fund again to assist so many companies. And finally, which is the important piece, we know that so many of our companies who export to the US do so on quality. They have very significant premium produce, a lot of them have. So we have to see as well in terms of productivity and competitiveness, how we can hive out more productivity in terms of the margins. And we have the digital process innovation support, which is also available through Enterprise Ireland system.

JOE LYNAM (02:36):

You hinted at the weekend that you would remove some rules on Irish firms to help them trade such as health warnings on Irish drinks labels. Is that going to go ahead, that drinks labels or are you going to pause them?

PETER BURKE - ENTERPRISE MINISTER (02:49):

So that's currently under consideration. Obviously the regulations come from the Department of Health, but we have a very close eye on our competitiveness. And one thing I'm doing this week and bringing forward a proposal, a paper to the cabinet subcommittee on the economy. But if you were to do a memorandum to government next week on looking at two key issues, one to set and train to have our competitive strategy, which will be very clear that we want a very significant action plan together with hold of government supporting it before the summer. But secondly, there's a number of key areas I think where we can get quick wins now and try and get them and train before the summer. And that would send a very strong signal to businesses that were very serious about our competitive piece. We know we're the most competitive economy in the Euro zone right now. We're number four of the 67 countries that are measured across independent yearbook, but we can do better and critically in our infrastructure is where we need to sharpen up.

JOE LYNAM (03:41):

Trump was asked in the Oval Office last night whether the EU offer of 0% tariffs on all industrial goods, including pharma would be good enough. And he said no. It doesn't sound like the EU is going to be able to negotiate with Trump.

PETER BURKE - ENTERPRISE MINISTER (03:55):

It's a very difficult position at the moment. And when you see essentially that the US have put an arbitrary figure of 39% in connection with European goods, it's very difficult to see how the UK can be at 10% because both jurisdictions charge that, both have digital regulations. We're very much aware that Brexit has happened, but the UK is an awful long time out of the European Union, so it's very difficult to assess where that 39% is coming from unless you go to the leaving start pass somewhere. He's dividing the trade surplus by the total exports and using half the percentage. But essentially we need to get to a phase where we can negotiate. And I know Maros Sefcovik is very keen on that. The Commission obviously is going over to talk to Howard Lutnick this week as well to try and see how much we can working with Europe, change the dial and get into that space. But it's very striking if you look at last week about of the 600 billion goods that we export to the US in a European context with tariffs of 7 billion, now we have 80 billion. So that's more than a tenfold increase and that's very significant on global trade.

JOE LYNAM (04:58):

Do you think the EU will retaliate this week?

PETER BURKE - ENTERPRISE MINISTER (05:01):

I think there will be a series of countermeasures drafted up. Absolutely. The EU has to protect its market. They're very clear on that. A very significant marketplace, 450 million people. That's very important to us. But we favour negotiation. So there was a list which has been drafted yesterday. It's with our permanent representatives, our ambassadors across the EU working hard on it. And obviously we're trying our best any European context to protect Irish interests. We know there are very vulnerable sectors there from our drinks and our AgriFood. So we have a lot of work to do, but hopefully we can get into a space where we can negotiate. But I can't say that at any degree of confidence right now.

JOE LYNAM (05:39):

Thank you, minister. That is the Minister for Enterprise, Peter Burke

Is 2025 set to be a real Rubicon moment for Europe - one when the US ceases to be a true trading and military ally?

LISTEN BACK: https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/will-europe-look-to-trade-more-with-china-and-india

TRANSCRIPT:

JOE (00:00):

1914, 1939, 1989, 2001. All years that have proven to be pivotal in how the world works. Is 2025 set to join that list? Is the Western Alliance and Trading System about to break up? If so, does Europe look to trade more with China and India and less with its natural ally in the us? Key European leaders meet later this morning in Paris as part of an emergency meeting to discuss what Europe does if America abandons Ukraine and imposes tariffs on its erstwhile allies. Michael Sullivan is the author of The Levelling, which predicted the Consequences of Deglobalization. He's also a director of UNIO Wealth Managers. Good morning, Mike.

MIKE (00:43):

Sure. Very good morning to you,

JOE (00:44):

Mike. Does it feel like a ‘fin de siecle’ to you?

MIKE (00:48):

I don't think it feels like the end, Joe, because I think globalisation has already come to an end with events like the first Trump presidency andBrexit. My sense is that this is the beginning of something new in that it's an attempt to build a new model for America across the world, and it's one that will probably look and feel like the opposite of what we've come to to experience to enjoy in the last 30, 40 or more years. And it's people in Ireland should pay attention because we are very, very close to America. And this is a model I think of American exceptionalism, American isolationism. It's one that's hostile to the rest of the world. Europe has never felt, I think in the last few months an America that has been as aggressive in taking the narrative vis-a-vis to Europe and effectively degrading and denigrating Europe. We see the same across the rest of the world. Relations between Canada and the states are breaking down. Very interesting comment far away in Singapore where their minister of defence said that America instead of being a force for good for democracy, is now like a landlord extracting rent from people. So it opens up a period of uncertainty and great tension

JOE (02:11):

And great tension is of course, what trading partners don't like. What do you think Macron et al can achieve this week in this emergency summit today in Paris?

MIKE (02:22):

To extent this saves Macron because I would've said that maybe two or three weeks ago we were going into the post Macron era in France in the sense that he's something of a lame duck, and I think this will suit him in terms of his own skills. It's really important that it's not about Macron, it's also about Frederick Merz, who I think in a week's time will be the new chancellor of Germany who has a political outlook very much like Macron. And also I think Keir Starmer and the UK become very important here as well. Specifically in terms of what Europe can do, I think that the first task is really to bolster security vis-a-vis Russian meddling in Europe. And there's been plenty of instances of Russian assassinations in Europe, attacks on infrastructure, so they have to push back quite hard. And that it brings into question the role of countries like Hungary, in particular in Europe, and whether Hungary now as an apologist for Russia will see more sanctions.

(03:25):

Big question mark as well over Austria, where there's attempts to form a government that have up until recently been led by a far right pro-Russia party. Then in terms of defence, I think we're going to see more joint defence spending across Europe, bonds on heavy equipment like transport aircraft. We'll see the issuance of EU defence bonds and Ireland will be invited to invest in those. Talk about a pan-European nuclear shield. And I think the patience of European leaders is now so exhausted by Mr. Trump and his cabinet that there'll be a big pushback against American attempts to try and force Europe to soften this regulation on the big social media companies. Again, an important touch point for Ireland.

JOE (04:17):

Yeah. Now, what about trading patterns? Does Europe start to seriously examining, tilting more towards China if America has become the unreliable boyfriend?

MIKE (04:29):

We're already seeing that, Joe. I think if you look at say, China trading more with Latin American countries, I think when we step back from this and say five years time, I think migration, financial flows and in particular trade patterns and investment patterns will have been changed fundamentally by the Trump administration and probably to the negative of the us. I don't think Europe moves closer to China in a strategic way, but because I think Europe has already disabused of the notion that China has been using intellectual property espionage effectively on many European sectors, I think it would be open to trade with China in terms of goods and services that are not strategic. I think the big winner from this is the region that spans India, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and this is what I would call the fourth pole. So in a world of three multipolar centres, the us, China, and Europe, we're now going to have a new big trading zone, which is sort of in the middle of these zones. If you look at Abu Dhabi, it's effectively sits at the centre of gravity of world economic activity. And I think that region is going to thrive because many of the countries and regions who perhaps would've chosen to trade directly with the states will trade more with each other, and this would become a new centre point effectively.

JOE (06:06):

And what about Ireland? It is utterly dependent on the US at the moment.

MIKE (06:11):

Well, Joe, we are poor innocents because we are totally unprepared for this kind of world. Ireland is having what I would call a diplomatic crash in that everything we have invested in diplomatically, geopolitically in the last 30, 40 years has now crashed or lost its relevance: a close relationship with the White House, the UN, et cetera. And we haven't prepared all of the other things you need to have in a tougher geopolitical world, a bigger army. We treat our soldiers very badly, an incoherent security apparatus. And it reminds me, without being too dramatic, it's a bit like 2010 when Brian Lenihan was at the airport heading off to Brussels. We are at a moment where we are effectively defenceless where other nations patrol our seas and our skies. We don't really have a good security apparatus, and many people have been warning about this for some time, but nothing has happened. And I think Ireland now is even though it's attached culturally, politically to the US and also in terms of investment flows, it is in the European camp and we will find ourselves being drawn closer into Europe. Europe is going to become, I think, more coherent, and it'll be put to us that you have to invest in European defence bonds, you have to contribute to the European defence effort. So there is a geopolitical crisis coming for our leaders.

JOE (07:48):

Mike, thanks very much for sharing your thoughts. That's Michael Sullivan there, the co-founder of Unio, as well as the author of the Levelling Back in a moment with the boss of the FinTech Association of Ireland.

What if it was as easy to set up a startup in the EU as in America?

Europe has continuously lagged the US in terms of startups and capital investment in new companies. Much of that is down to the perception of red tape that exists when operating across the 27 member states. There is a new proposal which aims to get over this by creating an EU wide recognised legal entity called an EU Inc.

Joe was joined on the show by serial investor Andreas Klinger who led this proposal and began by asking him whether it was indeed messy to start a business in the EU these days.

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/how-difficult-is-it-starting-a-business-in-the-eu-these-days

TRANSCRIPT

JOE LYNAM (00:00):

Europe has continuously lagged the US in terms of startups and capital investment in new companies. Much of that is down to the perception of red tape that exists when operating across 27 member states. There's a new proposal, which aims to get over this by creating an EU wide recognised legal entity called an EU Inc. Much like company set up in Delaware and operate all over the United States. And it's hoped that it will make it easier to get venture capital for European startups. I spoke to the technology entrepreneur and serial startup investor, Andreas Klinger, who led this proposal and began by asking him whether it was indeed messy to start a business in the EU These days.

ANDREAS (00:41):

The main difference in the US is you go to a website, you click a few buttons, you have a new company, you send an investor a link, and it doesn't matter where in the continent the investor is based and they will open a link and are able to invest instantly. So I don't have to figure out all the legal complexities. I don't have to figure out all these little things that you have to do in Europe. But the problem we have in Europe is not that it's like legal complexities, it's that every country has their own legal complexities. So investors from one country do not want to touch the legal system of other countries in the worry that something might be wrong and that bites you back five years later, right? The same is with taxation, all these kinds of aspects. There's all these little gotchas that lead to a very simple fact that less than 18% of all early stage investing is actually pan-European or different. Put, unless you have local investors, you most likely are not going to raise very effectively, and even if you have local investors, very likely those are not going to be the best people for your industry in the world because they just happen to be local people.

JOE (01:46):

Isn't the problem. Also, Andreas, that European citizens don't tend to take risks and invest in startups, whereas Americans are more risk friendly. They will throw thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars into brand new startups

ANDREAS (02:03):

Maybe. But I think it's an outcome of the system. Like if it's less likely that your company is going to quickly fundraise, quickly, hire quickly, raise more money, or quickly get customers and quickly accelerate, it's very likely that your company is not going to be big. So that kind of investment is less of a good opportunity for an investor. This makes any sense. It's less good opportunity for yourself. So automatically people are navigating towards the less risky ideas. You know what I mean? Because it's just more like you basically optimise probability of success versus maximising that success, and that's just an outcome of the system. This is not because Europeans have some of the biggest, most ambitious ideas. We have so much ambition here that we are actually exporting it to the states and creative some of the biggest companies in the states. And that's not because there's some magic difference between Europeans or Americans or Chinese or Indian. The main difference is the system. The system is just fragmented here and makes it hard to accelerate quickly. Well,

JOE (03:08):

Talk me through what you're proposing with your EU

ANDREAS (03:11):

Inc suggestion. Less than 18% of all early stage investing in Europe is actually pan-European, which basically means it's very likely that anybody outside of your country is actually investing in your startups. So either all of your citizens get very rich and start investing in startups or you get more money into your country. So what we are trying to propose is a new legal entity across Europe that's still local. So it's still an Irish company, but corporate law in that entity has been standardised on European level, and they call it the 28th regime in Brussels. So basically there's a corporate law that this kind of entity can optionally pick for this specific use case. And by the fact that this corporate law is now standardised across Europe, you can do standard incorporation, standard documents, standard legal procedures, use the same lawyers, use the same everything. The advantage of that is confidence in all the parties involved.

(04:07):

And out of confidence comes momentum. Out of momentum comes acceleration, speed, taxes, employment in our proposal would still stay in island. This is still an Irish company. If they hire people in island, these people are still under Irish employment law. If they make revenue, that revenue is still Irish revenue taxed in island. The goal here is to make it easier to invest in those kind of companies by creating a standard that enough people understand and do. And to give this quick context, I also invest and I invest globally. For me, it's currently easier to invest in Brazil or in India because those actually end up using American Deliver Inc. Corporate entities. So they use the American standard. Many companies, many startups in Europe do the same because they know it's the only way to actually get international or pan-European investors. So founders already know this is a problem and they're trying to work around the American entities. The solution that we are trying to do is just create a European entities so that the taxes and the authority actually is in Europe.

JOE (05:09):

Will it need any treaty change to enact this or is this something that the commission with the agreement with the council can get done relatively easy?

ANDREAS (05:17):

So first of all, we are making a proposal and it's up to the commission to decide what they actually want to implement. And we are trying to work with the best legal teams in Europe, the best VCs and the best founders in Europe to make that happen. So we think it's a good compromise, and what we hope is by the fact that the employment and taxation actually stays on member state level, that there is less pushback from the member states because the main goal is to get more money into your country. That's the main goal of this whole thing. The main goal here is get more money in and build bigger companies. There is very few things that you actually need to standardise on the European level. It's mainly that there needs to be a new European entity and that European entity needs to adhere to that standardised corporate law.

(05:58):

That's one aspect that obviously countries have to accept or agree to. And the second one is one big problem we also have in Europe. It's not just incorporating and getting investment, it's also like other steps afterwards. For example, incentivizing employees through stock options. So a lot of founders early stage don't have the money to compete with the Googles of the world and salary. So what they do is they give equity in the startup itself to incentivize and let people participate in the outcome. The problem here is there's absolutely no standard in Europe how to make this happen. And to do this across Europe is close to impossible, and in many cases can even create tax liabilities for the employees that might bankrupt them, oddly enough. So what we are trying to do is we also try, because it's already like this platform of corporate law to introduce and standardisation for tax options for equity in startups, so that those kind of stock options can and afterwards be treated as the same way in Europe when it comes to taxation, the individual rates and incentives will be still up to the member states, obviously, but it should only be, for example, taxed at this situation of an exit and not before.

JOE LYNAM (07:05):

And that's Andreas Klinger, the startup investor behind EU Inc. Which has been decided upon by the Justice Commissioner Michael McGraw back in the moment with all the markets.

So it turns out that AI might not need all those data centres and use all that energy after all...

We’ve spoken about the energy required to run data centres in the past and how AI would drive that energy demand through the roof.  But the sudden arrival of DeepSeek from China seems to suggest that you might not need the type of scale that the US technology giants have been advocating.  Indeed Deepseek has suddenly forced investors and engineers to think again about how AI can and should work. 

Karen Hao - contributor to The Atlantic and AI Spotlight - and she was the first to profile OpenAI before the rest of us had even heard of it.  I spoke to her and she had a lot to say about these ‘Externalities’ associated with AI and the handover of economic and political power to the tech ‘Broligarchs’

LISTEN BACK:

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/the-externalities-associated-with-ai

TRANSCRIPT:

JOE LYNAM (00:00):

 We've spoken about the energy required to run data centres in the past and how AI will drive that energy demand through the roof. But the sudden arrival of deep seek from China seems to suggest that you might not need the type of scale that the US technology giants have been advocating. Indeed, DeepSeek has suddenly forced investors and engineers to think again about how AI can and should work. Karen Howe is a contributor with the Atlantic and AI spotlight and she was the first to profile open AI before the rest of us had even heard of it. I spoke to her last night and began by asking her about those externalities associated with ai

KAREN HAO (03:28):

Because the general public was introduced to AI through chat GBT. I think it really solidified a public misconception that AI advancements require extraordinary amounts of resources and extraordinary amounts of energy. So to sort of get to your question on why have AI development in the last few years required so much energy, it's because of the huge data centres that Open AI and other companies that are taking on open AI's approach have decided to build to power and train their AI models. And these data centres are to just give a sense of size. They're not even soccer fields is not, or football fields is not enough.

JOE LYNAM (04:13):

Have we learned over the last 48 hours that you don't need to do that? Do we know that now definitively because obviously Deep Seek is a Chinese company. They're not as transparent as listed European or American companies. And so can we trust what they have said thus far?

KAREN HAO (04:31):

The first one is, do we know this definitively now that we don't actually need this much energy? We've actually always known that within the AI research among AI experts, that has been knowledge that has just been ignored. There were a lot of critics when opening AI really commanded the attention of AI development and really made kind of everyone else fall in line with their approach. There were a lot of critics being like, why are we spending these many resources? We should not be doing that. We don't need to do that. We can innovate other ways to not do that. But they were sort of painted as naysayers or Luddites or people that didn't have much credence in what they were saying. And now DeepSeek has illustrated that actually what we have always known is in fact still what we know. And to your point on DeepSeek being less transparent. It's actually more transparent right now than American firms have been in the last few years because they have not just stated that what they did in a research paper, they also released their model online for anyone to download.

(05:41):

And that is not something that OpenAI does. It's not something that philanthropic does. It's not something Google has done in a while for its most bleeding edge models. And so a lot of the assertions that DeepSeek is making are actually things that other researchers and scientists and AI developers are now able to just download their model and test. And so yeah, I do think that we definitively know that AI development does not actually require extraordinary amounts of energy resources and it really has been kind of the singular choice of Silicon Valley companies to pursue that approach and make the public believe that that is what was needed.

JOE LYNAM (06:21):

And you've also expressed a concern that AI might hand over more political, even more economic power to Silicon Valley and a small bunch of American oligarchs.

KAREN HAO (06:32):

Absolutely. I mean, we already saw during the Trump administration's inauguration, that is sort of an extraordinary picture of all of the tech giant CEOs kind of standing in a line, sitting in a line clapping for President Trump as he was being inaugurated right next to the Trump family. And that was already kind a very clear symbol of kind of the amount of power, political capital, economic capital, social capital that they have accrued and consolidated within sort of the era that proceeded the AI craze with the social media era, the internet era. And in that same moment, the Trump administration then announced right after that they announced the Stargate Initiative, which is a joint venture to invest 500 billion of private investment into building data centres across the us, which is more money than was ever spent on the Apollo space programme. So that's the amount of money that they're talking about spending.

(07:42):

And when you build that much infrastructure that quickly, they're saying that they're going to do it within the four years of the Trump administration. You are talking about redistributing energy generation plants and waterlines in the us And if that were to happen in Ireland, it would be the same story. It would be redistributing energy, power plants and waterlines as well. And that is critical infrastructure that we're now seeding more and more control over giving Silicon Valley more and more control over the distribution of these resources, these physical infrastructure resources. Whereas before it was primarily just seeding over control of digital communication channels. So it is one degree deeper in terms of the amount of power cessation that is now happening.

JOE LYNAM (08:37):

Yeah, we have no shortage of water here in Ireland, but there is definitely a data centre debate going on about the amount of energy that they would use. And as you know, the European headquarters for the big tech giants are based here in the Irish Republic. I guess my final question is, do you think deepSeek has now exposed the tech milieu and shown that the emperor might not be wearing any clothes?

KAREN HAO (09:02):

I really hope that that's what it's done. I mean, I think it has, but it really will. I mean, in the short term, I'm a little bit pessimistic that it will actually shock the Trump administration into arriving at that conclusion because I think that there is a very high chance that the American companies are going to be extremely persuasive to the Trump administration, that the approach that they've taken is indeed the right approach. And actually in fact, deep Sea shows that they need a double down on that approach. But I hope that in the long run, this deep seek moment is going to make a lot more of the broader public, kind of suspicious of the claims and sceptical - healthily sceptical -of the claims that are coming out of Silicon Valley, such that as we elect future leaders, there will be more of an attentiveness towards these huge environmental issues that are being generated from Silicon Valley's vision of AI development that actually don't need to be taken.

JOE LYNAM (10:11):

And that was Karen Howe, the I AI expert and writer with The Atlantic. And you can hear the full extended interview with Karen on the Breakfast Business Podcast on Spotify or the Newstalk app powered by Go Loud

Is the EU gonna bend the knee and go easy on the Broligarchs and Donald Trump ?

I spoke to the FT’s Brussels correspondent Andy Bounds about how Europe could and should deal with Trump tearing up the OECD tax deal and about whether the EU will cower away from using the full power of the DSA against the Technology giants.

The responsible Commissioner Michael McGrath told him already that the delay in the case against X is being delayed as it has to be legally watertight

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/trump-believes-that-that-europe-is-treating-america-very-badly

TRANSCRIPT

Joe Lynam (00:00):

Through gritted teeth, Ireland agreed to raise its long held corporation tax from 12.5 to 15% for large companies as part of the agreed OECD global tax rules. But Donald Trump has now removed the US from that scheme entirely placing its global implementation in doubt. On top of that, he's now talking about polishing countries that charge American companies higher tax rates as well as creating an external revenue service. It all points to a major upheaval in how companies and governments will operate going forward and puts pressure on the EU especially because Trump believes that Europe is treating America very badly.

TRUMP CLIP (03:08):

They don't take our cars at all. They don't take our farm products essentially. They don't take very much. We have a 350 billion deficit with the European Union. They treat us very, very badly. So they're going to be for tariffs

Joe Lynam (03:21):

And that is Donald Trump speaking yesterday. Andy Bounds is the Brussels correspondent with the Financial Times. Good morning, Andy.

Andy Bounds (03:28):

Good morning.

Joe Lynam (03:29):

Andy, remind us about kind of the tax deal that was agreed at an O-E-C-D level that Trump now dislikes.

Andy Bounds (03:39):

Yes, and interesting is a deal that he sort of pushed for in his first term. I mean, he was very upset that American companies were putting their money into tax havens and the international way to deal with that, or at least low tax jurisdictions. The international way to deal with that was to have this global minimum tax, as you say, of 15% and that seemed to keep him happy. What he's now come back for a start, he seems to resent any international restrictions on what the US does and international bodies generally. So I think part of it's trying to undermine the OECD and set his own tax policies. But secondly, as you say, there's this particular issue which could cause trouble for Ireland, which is that he wants US companies to pay more tax in the US and as we know, a lot of US companies domiciled in Ireland and a lot of their global revenues kind of flow through there and they pay this Irish tax on it. He wants some of that revenue to be sent back to the US so that he can spend it on things there. Yeah,

Joe Lynam (04:45):

I can't imagine that these big American giants, especially the tech giants will like this because what we always learned in university, when your study business is companies can deal with big issues, big challenges, but they hate uncertainty. They hate when things are up in the air and that is what is exactly happening right now.

Andy Bounds (05:06):

Yeah, that's very true. In a way, that's what you get with Trump. I mean it's interesting, your previous item about legal fees. I mean I'm sure a lot of lawyers are going to do very well out of some of these disputes. The question is as well with Trump, of course he tends not to use traditional tactics. I mean we already talk about him threatening tariffs. He may use tariffs to try and force change on this issue, which is tariffs are normally about trade issues, but he kind of uses them as a weapon to get other policies as he wants. And what I notice very much from his early directives to his administration is a lot of it's about tax. There's not as much about trade yet that will come, but as big obsession seems to be taxed. And I think a lot of that comes from the people around him like Elon Musk and so on, because not only this global tax rate is hitting them and lot of countries are now putting in these digital services tax, try and find ways of taxing big tech groups which tend to sort of float above the system and operate internationally and find little ways of legally ensuring they pay as little as possible.

(06:12):

So he seems to be trying to take on that whole sort of network and structure as well.

Joe Lynam (06:15):

Now he only sees the physical trade deficit between the US and the eu. There is a massive services deficit in favour of the us.

Andy Bounds (06:25):

Yeah, that's right. I mean overall the trade relationship is quite balanced, but as you say, he's quite old fashioned I guess, in that he sees things he can touch and feel, steal cars, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, far more than he sees people paying money to use Facebook or advertising on X or whatever it is, which is services, trade financial services offices is huge. A lot of people in the EU using American financial services firm and that's all money going to US companies, but he doesn't see it, so he doesn't seem to care so much about it as the physical stuff.

Joe Lynam (07:04):

Now we're about to see a massive test of the teeth of the DSA and whether the EU has the political kaons to follow through on its own rules.

Andy Bounds (07:14):

Yes, that's a really good point. I mean, as you say, the DSA is Digital Services Act, which is supposed to police online behaviour and stopping election interference and hyping up particular posts and spreading disinformation. It's only just come in, it's not really been tested. There's a massive long investigation into X and mask over a year. Most of the companies covered by it are under investigation now. I actually had an interview with Michael McGrath, the Irish commissioner this week, and he said one reason all this is taking so long is that they do fear court challenges. These companies can appeal. If you find them, you can find 'em up to 6% of their global revenue, which is huge. I don't think they'd go that far, but if you find them, they will hire these expensive lawyers and if there's any gaps in the EU case, as we saw with Apple, it goes back and forth for years,

Joe Lynam (08:05):

But the commission won. But the commission won in the end in that one

Andy Bounds (08:08):

It did in the end, but I mean that's why they have to make sure it's absolutely watertight because if they were to lose A, they cost them money. B, it costs them credibility. Right? I mean, Trump would immediately say, well, your regulations rubbish. The judges don't like it, get rid of it.

Joe Lynam (08:24):

Very briefly, do you think they will pursue this case with X vigorously and in the expectation that he will definitely appeal no matter what?

Andy Bounds (08:34):

I think they will probably have to, I mean they will trim it down, I think to the very, very, every legal case has. Its a hundred percent what you think is a hundred percent certain and what 90%. I think they'll trim it down to what they really, really think. They can get certain, probably smaller. The fine might not be huge, but I think they will have to because otherwise the credibility of the place will shrivel up.

Joe Lynam (08:56):

Alright, Andy, thanks for joining us. That's Andy Pounds, Brussels correspondent with the Financial Times back in the moment, talking about social media posts by staff and what employers.

What would it mean if Elon Musk took control of 2 of the biggest social media platforms and Meta walks away from content Moderation?

“They've called this more speech, fewer Mistakes, but I think the real concern is that it's going to be less speech and more mistakes”

Donald Trump meets Mark Zuckerberg in 2019

I spoke to Thomas Hughes the Chief executive of The Appeals Centre Europe which arbitrates between the social media giants and users. And the Chief executive Thomas Hughes had plenty to say

LISTEN HERE

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/the-business-of-the-appeals-centre-europe

TRANSCRIPT:

JOE LYNAM: So what do the radical changes in their moderation policies mean for you guys? 

Because they said that very clearly they're going to scale back their moderators as in human beings who look at all the content and decide to take down or leave up on their side, and they're going to leave it to a kind of a community notes type solution, which X has? What does that mean for you guys?

Thomas Hughes:

So last week meta announced that they were making a number of very significant policy changes. They've called this more speech, fewer Mistakes, but I think the real concern is that it's going to be less speech and more mistakes. There's quite a few elements to that, but the ones I think that really people should pay attention to are firstly that meta is going to reverse what has been quite a longstanding process of reducing political and politicised content in people's feeds. And actually they're going to increase that. Again, they say they're going to give users more sort of individual controls to be able to not have that in their feed. But basically the default will be to include that kind of political and politicised speech. They're also saying that they're going to end fact-checkers. So fact-checking essentially is a process in which independent third parties look at content that they think is untruthful, is misleading, is misinformation or disinformation.

And they put additional context around that content. They don't censor the content. It's not up to them to take the content down. That is Meta's decision, but they provide extra additional content. What Meta is saying is that they want to move to something called Community Notes, which is basically where users themselves start to generate information about the context of content. The real challenge there of course, is that those users tend to be very politicised and they have to agree on those notes. So essentially we're going to a lot less pieces of content being fact-checked. And here we're talking about tens of millions of pieces of content. It's a lot of content that we are thinking about here. And the third thing is that there's going to be changes to the policies themselves. So essentially the policies of Matter are going to become more permissive in relation to certain issues which they think are mainstream discourse in society now. But just to make that very concrete, they've targeted issues like immigration and gender and sexuality. So things that were not permissible on the platform will now be permissible on Facebook and Threads and on Instagram. So just to give you a very concrete idea of what that might look like. For instance, now you could go on and write, gay and lesbian people are abnormal or weird. You wouldn't have been able

JOE :

To do that previously, and they hope the community notes will pick somebody up on that, but it won't prevent the actual statement going on there. Before you go reports, you heard there that Elon Musk might end up owning TikTok. Any thoughts on that?

Thomas Hughes :

Yes. Well that seems to be focused obviously, specifically on the United States, not on Europe. So we'd have to see what the implications of that would be on TikTok operations here in Europe. I think, Joe, as you pointed out yourself, this runs very contrary to what Bytedance has said previously. I think that further consolidation in the hands of individuals in the hands of social media, in the hands of billionaires means probably less diversity. And I think it's very clear what direction of travel that X has taken in relation to social media content moderation. So to see TikTok in the US move in that same direction would certainly be a cause for concern.

How do you get from playing rugby for the Lions and Ireland to hunting for missing VAT invoices? Paul Wallace knows

LISTEN BACK. https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/the-business-of-vat-logic

TRANSCRIPT:

They say in sports that it's all about small margins, and that's certainly true for business, and some companies unknowingly reduce their own bottom line by failing to claim VAT that they've already paid for in inputs. The next guest played for Leinster, Ireland and the lions, but now he helps large companies find those missing expenses so that they can claim back from the taxpayer. Paul Wallace is the managing director of VAT logic. Morning Paul, good morning, Joe.

 What does VAT logic do? 

The VAT Act allows for the recovery of historical unclaimed input VAT so that's the credits that you haven't taken up, and we act as a complimentary service to finance, taxation, auditors, VAT advisory firms by carrying out a VAT review over the previous four years to find those. How do we do it? We've, over the last 20 years, established a data analytics program, which is proprietary tech called vata extract, and what that allows us to do is examine every transaction in the general ledger. So in some cases, that's many millions. We've recently done a client for over 8 million transactions for one financial year, and then any anomalies that are thrown up there, we further investigate and verify and then provide a report, so these can be claimed before you pass through the four year threshold where you can't benefit from those so these are invoices that these medium and large companies have paid out, which include VAT which they, for some reason, haven't claimed back. 

Is that right? Yeah. 

And there's a number of reasons for that. It can be both human and, you know, technical error with ERP systems with wrong settings as well. And these can be small amounts, but over four years and large numbers of transactions can build up to be quite considerable sums. And we been doing this for 20 years in originally out of South Africa, where it's a very mature market, the VAT review market, it isn't really here in Europe. And hence the opportunity for us, and why we set up in late did you get the proprietary software from them? Or did you get Yes, that was developed and all it basically can be moved into all that jurisdictions. So just a change of the parameters in our data analytics. So we've already moved into Ireland and the UK, and we'll be moving further into the European market, okay? And it goes back four years or 48 months. 

I presume it's most of these things will have been digitized, and it should be doable. How do you make your money? 

Well, we will share in the find it's a success fee basis only. So if we find zero no phone, no fee, no phone, no fee, that's exactly it. We will provide an eight week Analysis Report going through all their financial data, and we can give them a full marks tick, but as you'd imagine, with a no phone, no fee, as you say, and yeah, we will be expectant to find something, and we've had 100% success rate to date. So you have always found some small companies where we've had difficulty with, you know, getting into the ERP systems verification. ERP stands for just basically your your accounting platform with all your financials. 

Okay, so, but you will need access. You need full access to their accounts to be able to do the scan, and if you find nothing, you get paid. Nothing, correct? 

Yeah. Okay, so, so typically, what kind of amounts are you finding? Yeah, well, our business model would be for to work with companies of 50 million plus turnover. If I put a figure on it, our top, our big, biggest five clients this year, we will have found 3 million, 3 million in the value of the vast land. And they would all that all five of those would be 500 million plus turnover companies, and that would range from, it seems like a major 200,000 up to seven figure some, No, we wouldn't expect, generally, to find seven figure sums. But yes, that is the case, and we're probably maybe 222, clients might, might, might hit that, and it might be a five figure sum as well. Every you know, there's different industries, number of transactions, complexities, and within the business, the you know, the VATable supplies, how much is valuable our vat exempt are zero VAT. So it does vary from company to companies. Not as simple as, this is your turnover. This is what you find. And a lot of cases we dive in and we don't know what we're going to find. You know, is it going to be, 

Does it take weeks? Or does it take days? 

Yes, six, six to eight weeks. So basically, the usual data that's required for auditors is extracted, uploaded to a secure platform, then we run it through our vat extract data analytics that throws up anomalies, so it might whittle down maybe a million transactions down to 15,000 and then we further investigate that manually with our charter accounting team. And then at that stage, we'll provide a report, go through it with the client, and if everything is confirmed and agreed as missed, then that will be able to be used in their next vat return. 

And what about the tax man? Is there any statute of limitations? can the taxman say no, you're going too far back. Or they are they obliged to accept that?

The VAT act allows you to go back 48 months. So once it's there, we'll have all approved documentation, the invoices, etc. So we're very, very thorough that it's, it's all there and but it's not going it's not your problem. Once the tax man has his receipts and they, if they decide not to honor that that's, that's not your problem. You will have found the money as it were, yes, yeah. Well, I think that's, you know, to the company who does their own VAT returns, they will, they will have to realize and agree that it is very eligible, and it was something that was missed. And, you know, thankfully they, have that safety net of being able to go back four years and find where these errors were made. 

And how did you get from, you know, being a prop to, you know, looking for VAT in large companies,?

A South African company, funnily enough, where I played a lot of my rugby down in South Africa. And, yeah, and that's my big losses and big wins down there. So I was choose some contacts in South Africa that I got introduced to this i My background is economics. Worked in banking before I went professional in rugby, and when I retired, I've been involved in property, in the investment side, and then laterally in the debt brokerage side for commercial property. So, but this was an opportunity that was presented to me with zero competition in a market that isn't really looked after with regards to being we're in a unique position of being the only company that can go through every transaction on a success fee basis only. So, so it's an easy sell to clients really, when they look at it, and you know our results today, so 

your commission is generous as well? 

It is, yeah, we share with the clients. 

Is it cheaper to renovate an old building or knock it down?

Ballymore is one of the biggest construction companies in Britain and Ireland these days - currently building the Guinness Quarter, Sea Gardens in Bray as well as  numerous large projects in the UK including Nine Elms in London.  I spoke to Pat Phelan – the Managing Director of Ballymore Ireland about what it is being-a-major-builder-these-days - and asked him about whether there are enough builders to meet demand. But i began by asking him whether it was cheaper to knock down an old building or renovate it? 

Renovation is difficult, and there's no doubt about it. I mean, you know, if you look at where the cities need to go, even under our national planning framework, you know, the preference is to have 40% of that to be brownfield development. Brownfield development is more expensive. However, again, back to that word sustainability. There is an absolute intent from particular Dublin City Council now that, you know, building on Greenfield sites is not the way to go, certainly for the city itself and its environment. And there's an aspiration that we will bring older buildings back into use. So I think there's definitely going to be a push from the planners and even, I think, from occupiers, to bring some of the older stock back to the standards that we need for their sustainable buildings we're going to need. And to answer your question, it is, it is more expensive and to renovate, to renovate, yeah, that's going to have to be reflected in in in the rents that people pay. But if we are going to get serious about carbon, we you know, we need to do that. Capacity is a major issue, and we had someone on Newstalk breakfast yesterday who said that there aren't enough builders out there to meet the targets that we've set ourselves, especially for residential house building. Is that correct? I think currently, certainly, from ballymores perspective, there are. But again, you know the government correctly, and let's see what the new government looks like. Have set, you know, very high targets on the industry. You know, we've already probably doubled the capacity to be delivered in that delivered in the last four years. That has to double again. And you know, we will all have to work very closely with the colleges, with with our suppliers, to make sure that we do have the trades and the services that we need. And final question, what is the main blockage when it comes to building homes? Undoubtedly it is the availability of zoned and Service land. If you look at where I as the manager, director of ballymore, spend most of my time, it is trying to ensure that we have the basic raw material for our industry. And I am, you know, on record as getting worried about this. I think we have been building out the low hanging fruit over the last five years. I think Ireland and this came up in the election around the provision of infrastructure, we need to get very serious around where we're zoning our land and also how we're servicing that land.

Are the skies really blue at @BlueSky?

I spoke to Rose Wang - the COO of BlueSky in California for @newstalkfm.bsky.social. We spoke about lots of things incl the risk of being an Echo chamber and how it makes money. But i began by asking whether the post election surge had surprised even them? The Transcript is below too

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6mg8zWxBM7TGCb5OotRFTB?si=Mo2iq_J-RxyoT0CrmrGUiw

JOE: Were you surprised at the surge in memberships since Nov 6th?

ROSE: I always say that it's impossible to see the future. And so I don't think we had any predictions of what was going to happen with user growth, but I think a couple of things were true.

One, we were prepared for. a scenario of growth if that happened, because we've actually seen growth surges the last year. So it's happened in Japan, in Brazil, in the UK. And only recently are we seeing a huge growth surge in the US and Canada. And so I think that's why we're getting so much news right now, but it's something internally in the team that we've seen, dealt with and are prepared for.

Okay. And in terms of moderation, what's the difference between BlueSky and other micro blogging sites?  

We've taken a page out of reddit where reddit has given community moderator tools to users so they can go govern their own spaces better but many of those tools are manual and you have to use keywords they don't go from subreddit to subreddit and so we've taken that even a step further by giving programmatic  abilities to users to label posts that either have movie spoilers, and so you can go and label all movie spoilers across the network and hide those.

Or, if you don't want to see politics in your feed, you can choose a state where you see politics or don't, and you have that choice as a user. And what we believe is that Centralized systems have a really hard time meeting the needs of diverse communities, especially if their needs don't violate the terms of service in community guidelines.

And so we want to give those tools to users to go and govern their own spaces.
and is that referred to as a federated platform, allowing users to host their own version of Blue Sky at some stage?  



Our moderation is, we call it stackable moderation, but it's the decentralized nature of Blue Sky that allows folks to  basically build whatever we build.

And so a core principle of Blue Sky is whatever is first party, aka the company is building, any third party or any independent person or company can also build, whether that's feed or moderation service.  


JOE: Which brings on the question of how you make any money because there's no adverts in the feed that I've seen thus far

the way that we think about making money is that first we're going to launch subscriptions at the end of this year. And what's really important about subscriptions is that we will not put core features like speech behind a paywall, but we know that users want to have more ways to self express either through like custom aesthetics avatar frames, or higher resolution images.

And so Those are the subscriptions that we're going to come out with, but in the future, what a behavior that we've seen is that users are supporting each other on the app, and that's really exciting, where people who've created feeds or moderation labels and, They are getting paid through Patreon or Ko fi by other users.

And so in the future, we'll probably build a payments network where, and we'll help facilitate more payments across the network so that people can build a career and a living on the Blue Sky ecosystem. And then we'll just take a percentage of that transaction.



JOE: And will you move into video calling or audio calling?

Right now, I would say our engineers are doing our very best to keep Blue Sky app online, but where it goes the possibilities are endless, and, I just talked about third parties, first party, anyone can go build anything, and even if we don't build the audio or video App that people are looking for.

Anyone else can go build that on top of our protocol. And for example, we have a feature called starter packs where if you come into blue sky, you don't have to land into a completely chaotic global feed and you have users who've created the starter packs where there are followers they've curated for you and feeds curated.

So when you onboard onto blue sky, you land into a cozy corner with a bunch of followers. And.  What's really cool about these starter packs is that a third a lot of users are asking, Hey, can I search for these starter packs? I can't find them in the search. And we haven't made them searchable yet, but an independent developer built a directory of starter packs and then actually put them in categories like news or for sports, and you can go and follow those.

And so that's the beauty of blue sky. That's built on an open system is even if we as a company are busy doing something else, somebody else can go and build the thing that they want. And so you don't have to wait on us.

JOE: I heard somewhere that Andrew Tate was banned from joining Blue Sky. How did that work?
And also, how do you prevent Blue Sky not becoming just an echo chamber of everybody politically on the same side of the spectrum?

Blue sky. I think there's a false narrative that we are somehow catering to one group of people over another, and that's never been the point of blue sky.

We've built the infrastructure for a global conversation with the openness and tools that allow people to create their own experiences upon that infrastructure. So we're really not building any tool for any particular viewpoints, but rather letting other People create their own spaces online and part of that is enabling them to feel free to safely communicate in their spaces.

So I believe the Andrew Tate account was an impersonation account. So I'm not sure, it has not, we did not ban based on the fact that it's some person.

JOE:  Is there a chance then that far right wing voices or extreme left wing voices for whatever means might end up on the platform or is that difficult?

For us, we welcome anybody who is willing to have healthy  Dialogue online. And so for us, it's about  listening to our terms of service and community guidelines, which is governed by Aaron Roderick's, who used to be the head of election integrity at Twitter and now is the head of trust and safety at blue sky.

And in these terms of service, we had no tolerance for hate speech, no tolerance for misinformation. And so as long as users who are abiding by those rules. Transcribed  are having healthy dialogue, they're welcome to stay, but if they violate our terms of service, then like most other social apps, we ask you to leave.

What's different about BlueSky or the ecosystem is we can ask you to leave BlueSky and you can build your own app on your own server and  find your own community. So the difference here is we've kicked you out of our city, but you can go to a different city.

JOE: Finally, will you be adding an edit button?

I always say to users, what you guys want is usually what we want.

But for now an edit, but it is not on the roadmap

On the Make America. Again!

On The Make America, Again!!

Posh neighbourhood - awful roads

Most people have a sunny image of America thanks to watching films and TV series.  It usually displays wealth and sunshine.  People are usually well groomed and mostly friendly.  Americans are certainly friendly but mostly to those whose money they depend on.

4 Northsiders in the desert

I spent a week in California and Nevada recently (catching U2 in the Sphere if you must know) and was struck by the sheer cost of things and the sheer nakedness of the upselling.

‘Would you like to go for our breakfast special today - only $34?’ 

‘Would you like to upgrade your room - only $250?’

‘Would you like to go for a bigger car today Sir?’

We Europeans find the tipping culture in America pretty shocking.  People who do their job for which they are paid also expect - nay demand - that you also tip them between 17 and 25% on top of that and the local state taxes for doing that job.   This makes dining or drinking out in the US very pricey - even for those of us who are used to London and Dublin prices.  The price of a draught beer in LA is usually above $10 and wine, which is picked off the vine a mere hour or so away, usually $12 a glass.  Add in the expected tip for the strenuous task of taking the lid off the bottle and it soon reaches the equivalent of €15 for a modest quality drink.

Peggy Sue’s diner off the Freeway to Las Vegas

This makes an average meal very expensive for most people and that includes Americans who by my calculation, would need to earn $100,000 before tax to maintain a distinctly normal lifestyle in CA or NV.  BTW Rents in LA make Dublin/London look affordable.

Now I know that many people in the hospitality sector work incredibly hard and many deserve their tips. But countless numbers do not and yet get them anyway on top of their state minimum wage of $12 an hour. And it is that sense of entitlement which irks.  The fact that if you don't tip the barman for the first drink, he or she will simply not come back to you again.

Excalibur hotel in Vegas

Or take the shop in Vegas in which I wanted to buy a T-shirt as a memento of my trip.  For a piece of black material with a tiny piece of artwork on it, they wanted $50.  I picked it off the shelf, brought it to the till where it was scanned, state tax added and then the card machine swivelled around in expectation that I would tip 20% ($11) on top of that again.  I had to seek out ‘Custom’ with the small font.  

When I first came to the US in 2000, the tip was in cash and usually around 12%.  But it is now around 20%.  Where does that sense of entitlement end?  40%?  50%?  At what point do Americans themselves say enough is enough?

One of our travelling companions flew on to Nashville in Tennessee and said the price of food and drink there was appreciably lower than California.

That suggests that the borderless market is alive and well and driving down prices in the ‘Red states’ at least.  But the rents and wages are also appreciably lower.

The Warner Bros studios in LA

And it’s not just in hospitality that the constant upselling goes on.  We went on a Warner Bros studio tour ($75 per person) and the final hour of it was a wonderful museum - tainted by the fact that all the way along the organisers were trying to get you to pay for photos they had taken of you beside movie memorabilia along the way.

The Bat Bike

Meanwhile the quality of the roads in the US are rapidly deteriorating which suggests to me that money which might have gone on taxes is now going into pockets for personal aggrandisement as everyone kicks the can of public space improvement down the road.

I’m not saying i prefer the gruff directness of German department store staff or Finnish barmen ahead of faux smiles from Americans but maybe we have the right mix here in Ireland where people are friendly, motorways are smooth(ish) and no one expects a 20% tip for doing their job.

Maybe - just maybe - the grass is not always greener on the other side (of the Atlantic.

Automated on the Atlantic by Joe Lynam - Newstalk business editor

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/breakfast-business/autonomous-cars-in-ireland 

A stripped back Land Rover

Just as you should never judge a book by the cover, you should never judge modernity by the remoteness of the town. Shannon was created out of marshland 6 decades ago and was supposed to be a new type of Irish urban dwelling . The airport became a vital hub for transport communications and tourism but it fell out of favour in the 1990s, as all the technology companies wanted to be close to Intel and the capital city on the east coast.

Rather than managing, decline, the city, fathers and mothers reinvented Shannon and those concrete warehouses were slowly, but surely replaced with far more modern and energy-efficient buildings to attract international companies.

JLR in Shannon

Into this mix in the last five years has come Jaguar Land Rover. The British classic car-maker decided to send its brightest software engineers to Shannon to work on how the cars of the 2020s and even the 2030s should be controlled.

It is here in the Shannon free zone that Jaguar Land Rover – now owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata motors – is testing self-driving cars known as automated vehicles. It’s also here that it is quite obvious that the law and especially the insurance industry has a lot of catching up to do to meet the speed with which automated and semi autonomous vehicles are progressing. It’s probably not a stretch to say that children born from 2020 onwards may not ever need to own a car nor even a driving license if the law will allow them to get behind an autonomous vehicle and propel them from A to B.

John Cormican,General Manager of Vehicle Engineering JLR Shannon & Portland USA

The amiable Limerick born boss of JLR in Shannon - John Cormican - brings me to an all but empty yet brand new building adjacent to where most of his colleagues work in the Shannon Free Zone.

The cleaner greets us but there’s no one there milling around at the entrance because many of the staff can work their software magic in the comfort of their own kitchen.

Inside a large hall, Cormican shows me a silver cage which is called ‘a rig’.  It looks like something you'd store computer servers in but at a cost of €2m it’s roped off from the hoi polloi like me.

A stripped down Land Rover upon which new software is tested

The rig is how software which is designed in Shannon is tested on the Range & Land Rovers of the future.

Beside the rig is a gleaming Land Rover in which 2 engineers stare at laptops digesting data from the last test run.

Back in Dublin, my Newstalk colleagues commented how they had no idea that such bleeding edge technology was being piloted on the western seaboard of Europe.  And I get a sense that JLR is happy to keep its little secret under the radar.

What started off with a handful of software boffins in 2017 has mushroomed into 300+ staff dreaming up and implementing software applications which the cars can pull down from the cloud without even stopping to order a ‘skimmed oatmilk Mugachino’

I wondered whether it’s a tough ask to attract talented engineers to Shannon as opposed to more cosmopolitan parts of Europe?

“It's quite a big recruitment drive we've been on since we opened up in 2017. I wouldn't classify it as being remote,” according to John Cormican. 

“I mean, we live in the west of Ireland. It's one of the most beautiful places in the world. We're in between two major cities, Galway and Limerick. 

We have a flexible working environment. We attract engineers from all over Ireland. Um, we embrace flexible working and working from home.” 

JLR is also keen for the physical and legal infrastructure to improve in Ireland which lags way behind many of its European neighbours in terms of charging points.  On top of that, no autonomous car is permitted to be even tested on Irish public roads, so that’s why JLR needs its own test track.

When asked what one or two things he’d like to see changed to speed up the automation and testing side of self driving cars, Cormican is clear:

“I think accelerating more technology courses in those universities and colleges is important. But one thing that's quite specific is legislation for the testing of autonomous vehicles on Irish public roads under very strict safety guidelines is something we've been asking for quite some time.”

If Cormican gets his way there might be phantom drivers cruising around the west of Ireland in gleaming SUVs in the very near future.

Trapping Graft in Strasbourg parliament

Joe Lynam - Newstalk Business Editor  

It’s been written before but there is no city as beautiful and yet as inaccessible as Strasbourg.  They picked it because the French and Germans had gone to war over it three times and it’s a symbol of the (hopefully) permanent peace between the two neighbours. France got to keep a place with German names, German architecture and on the German border.

But Berlin and Paris must have been relieved that - so far - none of their nationals have been implicated, arrested, searched or charged with anything to do with ‘Qatargate’.

Instead it's Athens and Rome who fret as Italian and Greek surnames appear all over this enveloping scandal.  Four people linked to those nations have been arrested and some already charged by the Belgian authorities.  Eva Kaili is in a Brussels prison but has said she broke no rules.  A court service strike has delayed her appearance before a Belgian judge. But her workplace - the European Parliament  - has already stripped her of her role as vice president and her political party - Pasok (home to the Papandreou political ascendancy)-  has fired her.  

So the mood was as icy last week as the weather when hundreds of MEPs made their way to the Alsatian capital.  So did I, in a travel odyssey that could feature in any remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles - without the comedy.

I had pre booked and confirmed an interview with the president of the EU Parliament Roberta Metsola a week in advance but I was not shocked when she cancelled on Monday night as I was sitting on a bus from Frankfurt to Strasbourg with a bunch of MEPs - scrambling around on mobiles to find any new morsel of information about the institution of which they are the face.

I watched with them Ms Metsola’s incandescent speech (and her first public pronouncement) on the scandal on Monday evening - some of which was confected but most of which was white hot anger that her well laid legislative plans were set to be benched and overshadowed by the filthy caravan of bribery and graft that had wheeled into town and parked in her driveway.

All other votes and proposals were rendered irrelevant over the next few days.  The brave Ukrainian emergency workers who received the Sakharov peace prize, the latest package of sanctions on Russia - even the looming trade war with the USA over state aid had had to step aside as the bright halogen light of MEPs accepting suitcases of cash for diluting any criticism of the oil rich World Cup hosts- blinded all other stories.

I started and ended the two shows that we broadcast live from the gleaming radio studios within the belly of the Parliament, with Qatargate.  I didn't want to but I had to. I spoke to many MEPs and former MEPs including Commissioner Mairead McGuinness about the black brush which was tarring the entire institution. 

And then as I queued up for lunch in what is probably the worst laid out building in Christendom, my phone vibrated with a message from the head of comms of the President. 

Would I be able to come right now to her office for an interview?    My heart raced.  Ms Metsola had eschewed all other planned one-on-one interviews, keeping her powder dry for big speeches before her Plenary peers. 

I said I'd gladly do the interview but only on the condition that she answered questions about bribery as well. She agreed and I was brought to the 15th floor presidential suite overlooking the snow capped European quarter of Strasbourg and including the ‘talking shop’ of the Council of Europe - now denuded of Russian membership.

Roberta Metsola is a ‘young’ president. Unlike her three predecessors, she abounds with energy and purpose.  Her term is for less than three years and so she needs to make a mark on European legislation in that time.  This graft crisis ensures that she may now become better known than all her predecessors - ironic given she’s from the EU’s smallest member state, Malta.

She arrives in the reception area of her own President zone at around 2.25pm -nibbling on a pretzel - not exactly the lunch of kings or queens - but something to tide her over as she moves (at a fair pace) from meetings, to awards ceremonies, to chairing plenary sessions, press conferences and now media interviews - though she only did one: mine. 

She speaks in French to the formally dressed and silver-chain-wearing custodians of the parliament, English to her staff, Italian and Maltese in her home country and she probably has picked up Finnish from her husband.

I start our interview by asking how she’ll vote on the amendment to suspend the open skies agreement signed last year between the EU and Qatar.  And agreement which appears to benefit only one airline: Qatar Airways.

Then I raise the fact that MEPs can hire whoever they want and no one gets sanctioned if they don't declare meetings with lobbyists etc.  She remains unflustered as you will hear and remains chatty and engaging afterwards.  Even though I was told I'd get only 8mins, I was still in her company 26 mins after the 1st handshake.  

Pleasantries aside, she will have some job reforming an institution which has resisted reform and true transparency for decades. A kind of Orange Order with better offices. 

And she’ll be under pressure to do so from the two other major EU institutions:  the Commission and the Council.  That’s because the latter two - although not directly affected by this brewing scandal- know that they too will be tarred with its putrid graft-imbued brush.  If Metsola can't clean up her own house, the garbage will spill out all over the neighbourhood.