On the podcast this week?: Ciara O'Brien on the troubles swirling around Twitter under the leadership of Elon Musk. The company this week met with the Irish Data Protection Commission to discuss concerns about upheaval at the company and how it could impact the safety of users and their data. Joe Brennan on the news that car insurers had a bumper year in 2021, enjoying the highest profits since 2009. The size of awards paid out plummeted but premiums only dipped slightly.
Asked by Sinn Féin enterprise and employment spokeswoman Louise O’Reilly whether Solas had already engaged with workers at the companies that have announced job cuts in recent weeks, Mr Travers said the consultation process was “ongoing, so in many of those cases, nobody has been laid off yet”. Asked about the nature of the contraction in the global technology sector this year, Una Fitzpatrick, director of Technology Ireland, said the slowdown is mostly affecting those larger multinationals that “grew most out of Covid”.Consequently, she said the domestic tech sector is unlikely to experience the same level of upheaval although she acknowledged “it is an ecosystem, so what will have an impact on the larger companies will have somewhat of an impact on SMEs”.