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From our friends over at the : Irishexaminer.com
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The engineering profession must adopt IT and pharma’s self-promotion to attract the best talent, Cork branch chair of Engineers Ireland Pádraig Leahy tells Pádraig Hoare.
There is a lot of good work going on under the radar in the engineering community and chair of the Cork branch of Engineers Ireland, Pádraig Leahy, wants everyone to know it.
The Douglas native, who is owner of PLAS Consulting Engineers in Little Island, has not lost the enthusiasm and drive for the vocation first ignited as a child.
A mechanical engineering graduate of CIT, then known as Cork RTC, Mr Leahy said: “I was an engineer since I was 10 years old, reading all the articles in magazines and encyclopedias, taking it all in. I loved it.”
That enthusiasm today means PLAS provides services to the manufacturing industry, such as setting up factories, increasing production and ensuring reliability and safety of machinery.
It also means chairing Cork’s branch of Engineers Ireland.
“There are 26,000 members nationally, and consistently Cork is around the 10% mark when it comes to membership. The Cork region of Engineers Ireland in terms of activity, whether it be lectures, seminars and site visits and that type of thing, is by a country mile the most active in the country. We’re not just 10% ahead of other regions, but rather 50%,” Mr Leahy said.
“What we are trying to do has a number of facets to it. Certainly, there is a strong engineering population in the region. The Cork region has historically been active and proactive. What we are trying to do is get the message out to existing members first off that there is this network of good resources. There is a significant benefit there and an excellent network they can tap into.
“We want to illuminate the activity so people are seeing the profession and the organisation more, so it is at the front of mind. You go back four years ago and we didn’t have much of a presence in the press at all, for example. It’s not for our own egos or anything like that, but rather to bring that profession to the front of people’s minds,” he added.
It means going into schools, hosting events and seminars, and generally bringing engineering to the masses. .
Mr Leahy said: “There is a reasonable level of interest in engineering generally, but there is a concerning dip in the numbers of civil and building engineering graduates. There were 1,494 civil and building engineering graduates in 2012, but that dropped to 669 in 2017. The lure of IT is a factor, as are the life sciences and medtech sectors in Ireland, which are very strong. The players in that industry have shone the spotlight, because they are extremely conscious of the criticality of resources at the moment.
“We must do similar in our industry. We’re not as good as a profession at promoting ourselves, generally speaking. We get it done and move on to the next job. That works in the industry but might not be as conducive to a sustained public campaign.”
Getting more women into the industry is imperative, Mr Leahy said, pointing to his Cork branch predecessor Kate Lehane of Cork County Council, and incoming president of Engineers Ireland, Marguerite Sayers of the ESB Group, as shining examples of excellence within the sector.
“There is for sure a bigger effort to attract more women to the industry. It is a problem that affects us all. Around 12% of practicing engineers in Ireland are women. That is completely out of proportion with the population ratio, so we are well behind the curve.
“Some of our best engineers are women and we are seeing greater involvement in our organisation in recent years.
“It is totally different to when I began attending events back in the late 1990s, when there may be no woman at all in the room for a lecture,” he said. “Engineers Week is where we go out to the schools to give talks, etc — it’s important that we as professionals put ourselves out there too, so the children can see the destinations of where they would be going on their life journey.”
Engineers Ireland foresees uncertainty around Brexit as detrimental, but such as is the profession, has taken measures to solidify the profession. “To be fair to my colleagues in Dublin, and in particular registrar Damien Owens, in December he sealed an agreement with the Engineering Council, an umbrella organisation for all the engineering institutions in the UK. There is now in place a mutual recognition agreement with the Engineering Council. It may not seem to be so important because it is in the UK, but it is particularly important to our colleagues around the North close to the border, which is something that may not necessarily have occurred to people before it was voiced.
“One particular area, chartered engineering, is a statutory title, and Engineers Ireland is that body that the authority in this country to award it. There are similar charter qualifications in the UK, and for certain pieces of work, you need to be a chartered engineer. So if there wasn’t mutual recognition, engineers and also the work would suffer. Whether Brexit happens or not, we are getting ready,” he said.
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Anyone taking a cursory glance at current pharmaceutical industry revenues and forecasts could be forgiven for thinking that all is well, writes John Whelan.
However, behind these numbers there are some major shifts that are disturbing the industry status quo and could impact severely on Ireland’s biggest export sector.
The pharma industry powered ahead last year and was the main driver of Ireland’s export growth. However, the sheer size of the industry is dwarfing all other exports and — in many cases — shielding market contraction in many other sectors.
Excluding pharmaceuticals, exports of all other products to the US markets fell across last year, similarly in China, whereas exports were stagnant across the Eurozone.
Any sneeze by the pharmaceutical producers has the potential to give a bad flu to the Irish export industry, as a whole, and put a major hole in Ireland’s balance of trade, which has been a mainstay in our economic recovery.
And in 2019, the pharmaceutical industry is facing a storm of challenges. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be handling the full impact of the UK’s exit from the EU.
Many Irish-based companies are scrambling to adjust operations to avoid disruptions to their supply lines and regulatory arrangements in the event of a hard Brexit. The indications, so far, are that plans are going smoothly, but the real test will come on March 29 when the break-up is due to take place.
However, the pharmaceutical industry is global and has been on a continuous growth path for the past few decades, with current global sales of €970bn. By 2020, this figure is set to rise to €1.25 trillion, according to industry sources.
But there are other challenges that may derail the industry in the coming year. Leading the charge is the rising demand for healthcare and the increasing cost of drugs. With healthcare budgets cutting deeper and deeper into national budgets, governments and patients and their insurers are exerting pressure to drive down prices.
One bold example involves The Netherlands. Not content with striking volume deals with the major pharmaceutical players, it is looking to utilise the power of the EU to create even greater economies of scale. At the moment, several member states are pooling together into a single procurement machine with massive bargaining power.
This initiative, in its early stages, is also being looked at by other states including Ireland who are seeking to cut their drug expenditure.
The Department of Health here has targeted GPs; pushing them to prescribe generic drugs in their drive to cut costs to the exchequer.
The major drug companies were pushed into freezing drug prices in the US while discussions with regulators were underway. However, the freeze appears to be over and increases in drug prices were reported to have started again in January. The Trump administration’s efforts to introduce European socialised drug pricing to the US market does not seem to be getting support.
But, with the ongoing demand for more affordable healthcare, the issue is not going to go away, either in the US or internationally. Price pressure, and the associated costs of researching and developing new drugs, is having the effect of prompting more companies into mergers and acquisitions.
In recent years, decisions on major merger investments by drug manufacturers have usually been positive for Irish-based sites. However, the attack by the US on so-called “inversion” deals, whereby pharmaceutical corporations shift their tax base through acquisition of an Irish-registered company, is likely to have long-term impacts on the attractiveness of Ireland as a manufacturing base.
- John Whelan is managing partner of international trade consultancy The Linkage-Partnership
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Europe's largest activist investor is likely to keep building a stake in CRH with the aim of taking a seat on the building materials group's board.
It was revealed that Cevian Capital acquired a stake of just under 3% in Ireland's largest multinational.
CRH shares rose as much as 4% to close 2.3% higher.
Cevian is one of a number of high-profile activist shareholders which invest with the purpose of driving corporate changes to boost the stock market value of the firms in which they invest.
The track record of Stockholm-based Cevian suggests it makes investments in companies for between one and seven years. In most cases, it secures a seat on the board. And it portrays its approach as working with amenable managers without “screaming and shouting”.
Cevian appears to see CRH as being undervalued by the stock market, with its margins trailing its peers and with little organic revenue growth and a strategy based on making acquisitions.
While the Swedish investor may look for some asset sales and cost efficiencies to improve margins, it is understood to be unlikely to seek a large-scale break-up of CRH's international businesses.
CRH is valued at almost €22bn, but its shares - down 18% over the past two years - have fared worse than the combined European index for construction and building materials stocks.
Its profitability is also below that of rival companies LafargeHolcim and HeidelbergCement. CRH is, however, in the midst of a €1bn share buyback programme and is conducting a review of its European distribution business in a bid to improve shareholder returns.
The company has spent big in the last few years, buying US cement maker Ash Grove for around €3bn and paying €6.5bn for some assets following the merger of Lafarge and Holcim. Last year CRH said it has €650m to €700m a year to spend on acquisitions. It is hoping to generate €7bn in cash, before asset disposals, over the coming four years and to use the money to fund acquisitions, increase dividends and possibly buy back more shares.
Cevian is best known for its shareholding in Volvo which earned it a huge profit of over €2bn when it sold its stake in the automaker to China’s Geely, in late 2017. Along with well-known US activist shareholder Elliott Management, Cevian has been active in Thyssenkrupp, the lifts to car parts conglomerate. It has a stake in engineering giant ABB and owns a shareholding of over 12% in air freight firm Panalpina, where it insisted its chairman should step down.
It is also the single largest shareholder in Ericsson.
In an interview last month on Bloomberg Television, co-founder Lars Forberg portrayed Cevian as an activist shareholder that went about its business in a quiet and non-aggressive way.
He said Cevian was “a constructive activist” that works with the right management and will have a long term strategy of “three, five, seven years” that tackles all aspects of the company it has invested in.
At Thyssenkrupp, Mr Forberg said the conglomerate needed simplifying, and the process would take time. At ABB – which also makes power grids – its involvement ensured the company created four divisions. It bought a 2.3% stake in Scandinavia’s largest bank, Nordea, before Christmas.
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The directors of the five-star Castlemartyr Hotel believe it will become profitable in the coming years after posting a loss of over €564,700 last year.
That is according to new accounts filed by Castlemartyr Country Hotel Resort Ltd in which the directors say that the loss was “in line with expectations due to the nature of any start-up business of this scale”.
The figures cover the 12 months to the end of March 2018. Revenues increased 7% to €10.1m in the period.
Hotel general manager Brendan Comerford said the Cork firm is happy with the trading figures and that it hopes to continue to expand sales.
In the accounts, the directors state that they plan changes in marketing and refurbishment to increase sales and help put the company into the black.
British businessman Martin Shaw bought the 220-acre resort for €14m in September 2015.
The property includes 103 rooms, a manor house, a 13th century Norman ruin, a lake, lodges, as well as a golf club.
Guests have included Bill Clinton and Bruce Springsteen.
Staff numbers rose from 210 to 296, and staff costs increased from €4.4m to €4.6m, according to the accounts.
The loss last year included a non-cash depreciation charge of €568,103 and also takes account of interest charges of €31,328.
A breakdown of revenues show accommodation sales totalled €3.5m, with food sales amounting to €2.8m and beverage sales contributing €1.4m to revenues.
The resort’s golf activities also made a sizeable contribution to revenues.
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