Ulster Business March 2025

MARCH 2025 Price £2.30 (€2.60)

Unlocking growth through education PwC on the role our colleges and universities play as key drivers of economic prosperity in NI

IN FOCUS

The challenges facing social housing here

FEATURE

Navigating the Trump tariffs for companies

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Contents 06 News

45 Tax & accounting

77 Motoring

The latest news and exclusives from across the world of Northern Ireland business

Firms here are uncertain about the future of US export markets amid talk of tariffs

BMW’s sporty electric gets an upgrade while we look at EV car sales across the UK

16 Cover story

53 Interview

84 Photocall

PwC on how universities can unlock regional growth to drive an innovation-led economy

Axial3D boss on how helping a cancer charity aligns with his firm’s ground-breaking work

A look at what’s been happening across Northern Ireland over the last few weeks

22 In Focus

63 IT & technology

92 Lifestyle

Alpha Housing chair John Glass on the challenges to build more homes here

The Irish firm using artificial technology to protect staff in the workplace

John Mulgrew gets hands on with Breitling’s new Six Nations-inspired watches

35 Travel & tourism

72 Food & drink

94 Travel

Is the lack of a transatlantic corridor from NI stopping business and tourism traffic?

John Mulgrew says the best way to deliver top flavours is by keeping things simple

Getaway doesn’t disappoint Madeleine Keane who notes the usual sauna rules apply

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MARCH 2025

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EDITOR’S COMMENTS

Farewell to top tourism chief

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ohn McGrillen has announced he’s stepping down from his role as chief executive of Tourism NI, after a decade at the helm.

Northern Ireland, with a burgeoning level of responsibility, as our tourism credentials become an ever more important part of our economic future.

I’ve known John through my professional life over that period, chatted to, and interviewed him on many occasions.

I wish John every success in his new endeavours, and thank him for the work he did during his time with the organisation – leading teams behind bringing some of the world’s largest sporting events to Northern Ireland, and helping put the region on the map.

He’s always been frank, and to the point, and someone who has been happy to have clear discussions about the sector and wider business environment, where it’s going and what’s need to get it further along up the road.

It’ll be a hard role to fill. There will likely be many worthy candidates lining up to take over what is one of the most interesting, yet challenging public sector roles here in

Welcome to the March edition of Ulster Business. It’s another packed magazine, featuring a raft of interviews, features, profiles, analysis, exclusive news, and more.

Our front cover this month features Cat McCusker of PwC. She’s taking a look

at the broader role our universities and colleges play as drivers of economic growth and community engagement, which often receive less attention compared to their core research and teaching roles.

Pavel Barter takes a close look at what impact tariffs, and potential tariffs, from the US could have on some of our firms here in Northern Ireland, as well as examining whether a lack of transatlantic business and domestic air link is holding us back here.

I also speak to John Glass of Alpha Housing on the work it’s doing, and the huge challenges ahead to build more properties across NI in order to tackle lengthy waiting lists. ■ John Mulgrew

Publisher Ulster Business c/o Mediahuis UK Ltd Belfast Telegraph House, 33 Clarendon Road, Clarendon Dock, Belfast BT1 3BG

Editor John Mulgrew, john.mulgrew@mediahuis.co.uk

Printer W&G Baird Greystone Press, Caulside Drive, Antrim BT41 2RS www.wgbaird.com

Graphic design Susan McClean, Mediahuis Ireland Design Studio

www.ulsterbusiness.com

Advertising Judith Martin, j.martin@mediahuis.co.uk

Cover photo Elaine Hill

@ulsterbusiness

Ulster Business Magazine

Mediahuis UK Ltd © 2025. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Mediahuis.

MARCH 2025

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NEWS

A month in numbers

1.5%

By John Mulgrew

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The rise in house prices between the third and fourth quarter of 2024, according to official figures.

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The number of new jobs being created by Napier AI as it builds a new base in Belfast.

65%

The proportion of hospitality firms which will reduce their employment levels due to a rise in National Insurance contributions.

40

The number of new jobs being created with the expansion of the duty free at Belfast International Airport.

Housing waiting list ‘could grow to 70,000’

John Glass

orthern Ireland’s burgeoning social housing waiting list could grow by thousands more and be in “worse position” if more homes aren’t built each year, it’s been claimed.

And John Glass of Alpha Housing says funding could need to “double” if we are to deal with the huge backlog of some 50,000 people waiting for a social home.

“There could be 60,000 to 70,000 people on the waiting list – we haven’t dealt with the backlog,” he tells Ulster Business.

There are now almost 50,000 people waiting for a home here in Northern Ireland.

And John says at the current rate of new builds, and with a growing population, that number is only likely to rise – possibly to 60,000 to 70,000.

“How do you catch up on 50,000 people on a waiting list if you’re only building 2,000 homes a year?

“The population is growing, and there are more people on that waiting list – we need to proactively deal with that backlog.

Plans are underway as part of the housing strategy to build 30,000 homes in the next 15 years.

But given the current rate of construction, John says we could be in a “worse position” in 15 years. “[There could be] 60,000 to 70,000 people on the waiting list – we haven’t dealt with the backlog,” he says.

“In England, the Housing Executive can retrofit properties, and make them more efficient. If you get money for decarbonising housing stock, you can retrofit insulation and reduce energy costs for tenants.

“I think the situation like that should be looked at [here], with funding for that.

“I think the model is right here in Northern Ireland for building new homes, but there is just not enough money.

“To catch up with this there has to be double the funding.”

Alpha Housing has a team of around 70 people, and builds around 100 new homes each year, as well as spending around £3m on maintenance of properties, with some 25 sheltered schemes across Northern Ireland.

It operates around 1,000 homes, spread across Northern Ireland, and focuses on providing sheltered housing for older people, however it is now building a range of homes across NI through NIHE’s Social Housing Development Programme.

Read the full interview on page 22-23

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NEWS

Licensing laws in NI ‘not fit for purpose’

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tormont has been urged to act after an independent report into the licensing laws here says that the current antiquated system was stifling competition and restricting growth.

MARCH 2025

Nightlife charity Free The Night welcomed the Independent Review of the Liquor Licensing System in Northern Ireland commissioned by the Department for Communities and led by the University of Stirling.

The report suggests the current “archaic” system is not fit for purpose and is leading to a drift towards fewer pubs and clubs, but more offlicences.

The licensing system in Northern Ireland, according to the review, “is not only substantially different to the rest of the UK but unusual by comparison to the rest of the world.”

It recommends that the ‘surrender principle’ – a one-in-one-out system designed to limit the number of licensed outlets which dates back almost 120 years – is substantially reformed or completely replaced to protect both public health and the nightlife sector.

It uncovered several “deep-seated problems” with the current licensing system’s design, operation and enforcement and put forward a set of recommendations to the Minister for Communities, who has six months to respond.

Researchers found the surrender principle is causing an ongoing drift of these limited licences from pubs, venues and other licenced spaces to off-licences, and that higher densities of off-licences are closely linked to increased alcohol-related harm – deaths, hospital admissions and crimes associated with alcohol.

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NEWS

Calls for ‘empty homes officer’ and strategy to tackle Belfast house waiting list A Belfast councillor is proposing the creation of a role for ‘empty homes officer’ and a new strategy to deal with housing waiting lists here, writes John Mulgrew

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here are calls for a new strategy and the appointment of an ‘empty homes officer’ for Belfast to tackle the thousands of families on a housing waiting list here.

A motion was recently tabled to deal with the thousands of households on the property waiting list in Belfast – with some 48,000 across Northern Ireland.

It’s being proposed that the council develops a new strategy to deal with the issue, alongside the Department for Communities (DfC), the Housing Executive, and other bodies, to “ensure there is a co-ordinated action plan to bring disused homes into public use”.

The motion was due to be proposed by People Before Profit councillor, Michael Collins, and has been seconded by councillor Áine Groogan of the Green Party.

“The council will seek to establish an Empty Homes Partnership, similar to the Scottish model, which will coordinate these efforts with the relevant bodies,” the motion says.

“The motion calls upon the council to undertake a number of actions in relation to empty homes, including developing a strategy, establishing a partnership and appointing an ‘empty homes officer’ – the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee is responsible for strategic policy, working with partners to lead on the Belfast Agenda and also agreeing the Local Development Plan. The motion will therefore be referred to that committee.”

It says it “notes with concern the growing number of households (48,000) on the housing waiting list”.

Quotes of the month

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“The council also notes with concern that despite the huge demand for public housing: there remains a substantial number of homes in Belfast which are empty.

“According to Land and Property this figure sits at 3,694 for the Belfast area. As a local authority, the council commits to working with the relevant departments to try to bring empty homes back into use as affordable and social housing. Council notes that the DfC Empty Homes strategy, which aimed to do this, ended in 2018.

“This action plan will be funded and appropriate measures such as an empty homes rates premium, strengthened compulsory purchase powers and financing support for converting empty homes into social housing are brought forward to ensure it is able to be delivered.”

Housing associations here are calling for more properties to be built.

“Delivering 1,403 new social homes this year – despite the barriers faced – has been positive, but that is simply not enough,” Seamus Leheny, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA), said recently.

“Tourism NI is a truly wonderful organisation driven by exceptional, hardworking people.”

“[A new US economic envoy] is more important now than ever – we need somebody to argue our case,”

Outgoing Tourism NI chief John McGrillen who is stepping down from the role.

Darragh Cullen, managing director of Edge Innovate, in this edition of Ulster Business.

“All Spirit operations must transfer together to a single entity to secure the highly-skilled jobs and manufacturing capacity.”

George Brash of Unite speaking about Spirit AeroSystems’ sale.

NEWS

Tourism NI chief stepping down from post

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he head of Tourism NI is stepping down from his role after a decade at the helm.

John McGrillen will leave his post at the end of July, following The Open – which is returning to Royal Portrush.

Mr McGrillen has had an extensive career across industry, and joined Tourism NI back in 2015.

His exit from the organisation marks the end of a 30-year-career in the public sector in a number of high-profile leadership roles.

During his time as chief of Tourism NI, Mr McGrillen oversaw the return of The Open to Northern Ireland in 2019, the first time in more than 60 years. He also played a pivotal role in the recovery of the local tourism industry from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The search us under way to appoint a new chief executive. Meanwhile, Ellvena Graham has been reappointed as chair of Tourism NI.

MARCH 2025

John McGrillen and Ellvena Graham

Mr McGrillen was formerly chief executive Down District Council before joining Belfast City Council where, as director of development, he was responsible for overseeing the development of the ICC at the Waterfront Hall and for a number of high-profile events including the MTV Europe Music Awards and the Giro d’Italia.

“Tourism NI is a truly wonderful organisation driven by exceptional, hardworking people who are determined to make a positive impact on this place we all call home,” Mr McGrillen said.

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NEWS

Indian street food chain opening first NI restaurant

By John Mulgrew

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n Indian street food chain founded by a top entrepreneur and TV chef is opening its first Northern Ireland restaurant, Ulster Business can reveal.

Mowgli Street Food is a UK-based Indian street food business owned by Nisha Katona MBE, serving up a wide range of dishes – from tiffin boxes to the ‘Mowgli Chip Butty’.

It’s now planning to take on two combined units on the ground floor of Victoria Square, and has applied for a licence for the units.

Mowgli Street Food is has more than two dozen locations across the UK, but started off life with its first restaurant at Bold Street in Liverpool back in 2014.

“Mowgli is all about the type of food that Indians cook and eat at home; born to feed the raw need Indians have for dishes full of fresh, bright, intense flavour,” the firm says on its website.

Owner Nisha Katona left behind a career as a child protection barrister – a role she had for 20 years – before starting up her business in 2014.

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Nisha Katona with her MBE following a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in 2019

“Her obsession with taking her ancestral offerings to the market and building an eatery serving the kind of food Indians eat at home and on their streets, led her to her first restaurant,” the firm said. “Her first Mowgli was born in the hinterlands of Liverpool’s Bold Street.

“Mowgli is about the smash and grab zing of healthy, light, virtuosic herbs and spices. The simple dishes on the Mowgli menu are cooked

fresh in each restaurant every morning. The aromas floating down the road should tell you all you need to know about us truly being your neighbourhood Indian home kitchen.”

Ms Katona also featured on a range of television programmes, including Top of the Shop, with chef Tom Kerridge, and was also a judge on Great British Menu.

“It is Nisha’s ambition to continue growing Mowgli Street Food with an overriding aim to enrich lives in the cities she goes to,” the firm says, “This is done through creating jobs in a nurturing workplace, sponsoring a child in need for each full-time employee and dedicating each restaurant to a local charity. The Mowgli Trust has raised over a million pounds for local and world charities.”

Mowgli Street Food has expanded significantly over the last few years, growing from its original Liverpool location to Manchester and beyond. It has restaurants in cities such as London, Bristol, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Cardiff.

NEWS

Mark Crimmins, Ulster Bank, Belfast Telegraph business editor Margaret Canning, and Clare Guinness, judging panel chair

Belfast Telegraph Business Awards kicks off for 2025

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he Belfast Telegraph Business Awards in partnership with Ulster Bank has been launched for 2025.

For a quarter of a century, the Belfast

MARCH 2025

Telegraph has marked the achievements of businesses and businesspeople around Northern Ireland at a glittering annual awards ceremony. Entries for this year’s awards are

now open, and will culminate in an awards ceremony on May 1 at the Crowne Plaza, Belfast.

Mark Crimmins, regional managing director of headline sponsor Ulster Bank, said: “At Ulster Bank, we are proud of our continued association with the Belfast Telegraph Business Awards and recognise the importance of celebrating the many achievements of our local business community.”

Eoin Brannigan, editor-in-chief of the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life, said: “We’re delighted to launch the 2025 Belfast Telegraph Business Awards in partnership with Ulster Bank.

“It’s the silver anniversary of the event this year, a really exciting landmark, and it’s as big an honour as ever to celebrate the achievements of companies around Northern Ireland.

“Thank you to Ulster Bank for their brilliant support and to our judging panel led by Clare Guinness for their commitment.”

The closing date is Friday, March 21 at 5pm

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AWARDS

Entries open for Responsible Business Awards for 2025

Sponsors and supporters help launch the Responsible Business Awards for 2025

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ompanies from across Northern Ireland which go above and beyond to make a difference to society or to the environment have a chance to showcase their efforts with the launch of this year’s Responsible Business Awards in Northern Ireland.

The awards – run by responsible business network Business in the Community (BITCNI) in partnership with key sponsor Henry Brothers – reward and recognise businesses large and small and from every sector in Northern Ireland on exceptional, inspiration and impactful corporate responsibility action.

The awards are open until May 2, are free to enter, and winners will be announced at the Awards gala event on September 4 at ICC Belfast.

The 13 categories cover a range of themes including diversity, wellbeing, climate, technology, partnerships, and community impact. An individual will be recognised as the 2025 Responsible Business Ambassador and a top prize is awarded to the 2025 NI Responsible Company of the Year, currently held by building materials and timber product supplier JP Corry.

Vicky Davies, chair, Business in the Community said: “These awards provide

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a platform to showcase and celebrate the most innovative and inspirational responsible businesses.

“As the only awards dedicated entirely to responsible business in NI, this is a unique opportunity for leaders in all areas of corporate responsibility to be recognised and rewarded for going beyond profit to be a force for good for society and the environment, and its serves as a way to inspire others to follow suit.”

The awards take place in partnership with key sponsor Henry Brothers and in association with Ulster Business, U105 and Consello Group.

Ian Henry MBE, CSR director, Henry Brothers said: “As a company with people, planet, and place at the heart of its operations, Henry Brothers is committed to responsible business practices that have a tangible impact in the communities where we work.

“Now in our fourth year as a sponsor, we know first hand how the Responsible Business Awards present companies across Northern Ireland with the invaluable opportunity to showcase their sustainable efforts and promote good business practice.

“We understand the significant value that collaboration can have and believe it is important to support businesses that

THE FULL LIST OF AWARDS  NI Responsible Company of the Year Award sponsored by JP Corry  Climate Action Award sponsored by Heron Energy  Collaborative Action Award sponsored

by Arthur Cox  Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award sponsored by Encirc  Employer of Choice Award sponsored

by Ulster University  Impact in your Community Award sponsored by SPAR NI  Nature & Biodiversity Award sponsored

by SONI  One-To-Watch Award sponsored by Danske Bank  Responsible Business Ambassador sponsored by SSE Airtricity  Responsible Product/Service Award sponsored by Translink  Responsible Technology Innovation Award sponsored by Allstate NI  Skills & Education Award sponsored by Belfast Harbour  Wellbeing at Work Award sponsored by Larne Port inspire positive change. We would therefore encourage all eligible companies to enter before the closing date of May 2, 2025.” ■

Bauer Media looks set to move into City Quays 3

NEWS

NI radio stations on the move to new Belfast city centre base The owner of Cool FM and Downtown look set to move into new offices and studios at Belfast Harbour, writes John Mulgrew

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ne of Northern Ireland’s biggest radio broadcasters is relocating and looks set to open up its new studio base in Belfast city centre, it can be revealed.

It’s understood that Bauer Media, which owns stations including Cool FM, Downtown and Downtown Country, is eyeing a floor at the 16-storey City Quays 3 building at Belfast Harbour.

Currently, the radio stations are based at Kiltonga Industrial Estate in Newtownards, Co Down.

Figures released last year revealed 538,000 listeners tune into Cool FM for 5.1 million hours each week across Northern Ireland.

The company could join a host of bluechip firms at the top-end City Quays 3 office development.

That includes Microsoft and Santander, as well as tech firm Aflac – which moved to City Quays 3 from its former City Quays 2 home – nearby.

In 2021, it was revealed that Bauer Media Audio was to acquire Newstalk and Today FM in the Republic. Bauer Media’s 52 UK

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radio brands also include nine Absolute Radio stations.

Bauer Media already owns audio businesses in seven other countries, excluding Ireland, and has more than 55 million weekly listeners.

Cool FM is Bauer Media’s biggest radio station here in Northern Ireland, featuring presenters including Pete Snodden, Rebecca McKinney and John Kearns.

Bauer Media did not wish to comment.

Belfast Harbour, meanwhile, said it “does not comment on market speculation”.

A number of media companies already call Belfast Harbour home.

That includes UTV and U105, which are based in the City Quays 2 building, while Mediahuis is based close by at Belfast Telegraph House, which houses titles such as the Belfast Telegraph, Sunday Life, Sunday World and Ulster Business.

Belfast Harbour is still seeking tenants for its large City Quays 3 development, with several floors still unoccupied. “[It’s] taking slightly longer than anticipated [to fill],” Joe O’Neill, Belfast Harbour chief, recently told Ulster Business.

“There are six floors [remaining] and we have a number of enquiries and are managing those. “[Across Belfast] there is some office space available, but we believe in 2028/29 that will be exhausted, with no development of grade A office.”

While a green light has been given for City Quays 5, further development will depend on market demands for office space.

The proposed City Quays 5 building, which is part of the City Quays Masterplan, will include 160,000 sq ft of space over nine floors and will be located on a site directly opposite the Belfast Harbour Commissioners office.

The wider plans also include City Quays 4, a 325-unit build-to-rent scheme beside the AC Hotel and the M3 bridge.

Work is also well underway on City Quays Gardens, which will see the area developed as a public realm space, which includes an “urban garden”, green space, seating, extensive tree planting, lawns, amphitheatre seating and outdoor workspace.

The project is also designed to help promote active and sustainable travel. ■

RECRUITMENT

In a competitive recruitment process there’s no room for CV error

By John Moore, managing director, Hays NI

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nyone working in the recruitment industry or responsible for hiring and HR in their organisation will have raised an eyebrow last month when a well-known politician became the latest in a line of high profile figures to have their CV called into question.

The story raised an important point about the need for clarity and accuracy on both CVs and the modern equivalent – our LinkedIn profiles.

It should go without saying that it is not a good idea to lie on your CV – an outright fabrication will rightly be frowned on when discovered.

But in the digital age, where exaggeration of our achievements is actively encouraged, it’s probably no surprise to learn that a lot of people are bending or stretching the truth online.

You may think there’s no harm in making that role you held for a year and 11 months into a two-year posting, bumping up the job, or making a short course you did sound just a few modules short of a Master’s.

But employers do not welcome misleading information about your levels of experience or qualifications – it can ultimately damage your reputation.

Writing a CV can be difficult, and while your LinkedIn profile doesn’t need to have the same level of detail, it’s crucial that both contain the right information to be noticed.

More often than not, with the exception of some application processes, your CV is still the main means of applying for roles. A good CV gives the recruiter a factual and chronological snapshot of your skills and experience. Typically, your CV will also be more tailored to the role than your LinkedIn profile.

It is important that you adapt your CV to fit the role you are applying for by: • Tweaking your personal statement to outline why you want to work for this particular industry and organisation • Streamlining your skills, education and experience to highlight only the most relevant information • Identifying the keywords used to describe the desired skills on the job description, such as “strong analytical skills”, and ensuring these are incorporated on your CV where possible Differentiating your CV for a job spec is crucial to pass the applicant tracking systems (ATS) software used by many employers. When scanning a CV, an ATS identifies keywords and phrases, assigning a higher score or ranking to that application. Failing to include the right keywords will lower your score.

The nature of LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to bring your skills and experience to life. Your profile tells the recruiter more of a story about who you are and what you are looking for.

MARCH 2025

Recruiters use advanced data analytics tools to find and engage with suitable passive and active job seekers. So, an up-to-date profile and frequent online activity can get you noticed by the right people.

For a strong and engaging LinkedIn profile you should: • Upload an up-to-date and professional photo • Add a compelling headline that more accurately reflects your specialism and interests • Make sure your skills and experience sections are up-to-date and supported by visual examples • Include endorsements and recommendations from other professionals in your network • Optimise your profile using relevant keywords • Share content relevant to your expertise and industry via blogs or updates • Like/share/comment on your connections’ updates • Get involved in forum discussions in LinkedIn Groups • Where appropriate, adjust your profile to show recruiters and hiring managers you’re ‘open to hearing about new opportunities’ • Ensure the chronological order of your employment history plotted out on your LinkedIn profile exactly matches that of your CV. CVs are still your most important personal sales tool when it comes to getting a job. But a good CV should be complemented by a strong, professional and active LinkedIn profile – one which brings all the claims you have on your CV to life and showcases everything you have to offer as a person and as a professional. Just make sure both are accurate. ■

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COVER STORY

How our universities can unlock regional growth to drive an innovation led economy Recognised globally for their academic excellence and world-leading research, our universities are key national assets. However, their broader civic role as drivers of economic growth and community engagement often receives less attention compared to their core research and teaching roles. That is starting to change, writes Cat McCusker, PwC regional market leader in Northern Ireland 16

Cat McCusker, PwC regional market leader in Northern Ireland

COVER STORY

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2024 review by London Economics and Universities UK found that every £1 invested in higher education research generates nearly £5 in additional annual economic output across the UK. This research results in over £40bn of increased private sector productivity each year.

Universities’ contributions to economic growth and social vitality is particularly true in the context of the UK’s devolved nations, where regional autonomy and local governance provide a strong foundation for universities to enhance their civic roles. Northern Ireland, with its distinct political and economic landscape, offers a compelling case study of how universities can act as catalysts for regional development.

MARCH 2025

Northern Ireland is fortunate to have two outstanding universities: Queen’s University Belfast, a prestigious member of the Russell Group, and Ulster University, recently recognized as the Times Higher Education University of the Year 2024.

A prime example of universities embedding themselves within their regional economic ecosystem is the Belfast Region City Deal (BRCD) – a £1bn investment programme aimed at enhancing innovation, skills, and infrastructure across six council areas. BRCD alone is a £1bn investment programme aimed at enhancing innovation, skills, and infrastructure across six council areas. Funded by the UK Government, NI Executive, local councils, and universities, this initiative places Queen’s University and Ulster University at the heart of greater Belfast’s long-term economic strategy.

One of the flagship projects within the BRCD is the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre – a £100m high-tech manufacturing hub. Led by Queen’s University Belfast, in collaboration with Ulster University and Newtownabbey Borough Council, AMIC is set to create up to 1,500 jobs, contribute £1bn to the economy, and train 300 apprentices by 2050. Manufacturers across NI will be able to use this ‘Factory of the Future’ to try out new ideas with the very latest technology.

The UK government’s commitment to regional devolution and the development of a new Industrial Strategy underscores the importance of place-based growth. This strategy emphasises the need for universities to align their missions with regional priorities, thereby fostering economic growth and social cohesion. As highlighted in a joint report by Lloyds Banking Group and PwC UK, universities are at a pivotal moment where they can redefine their civic roles to better serve their communities and regions.

In Northern Ireland, universities have embraced this opportunity by forming strategic partnerships with local government, businesses, and further education colleges.

These collaborations aim to address regional skills gaps, enhance innovation, and attract inward investment.

The benefits of collaboration are multifaceted: • The Shared Island Initiative aims to foster collaboration and mutual growth between

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland • International reach and opportunities are emphasised through collaboration with global partners, opening doors to new markets, providing access to diverse expertise, and creating a more dynamic and innovative environment • Collaboration with Great Britain is crucial, leading to joint research projects, shared knowledge, and increased funding opportunities, ultimately benefiting both regions.

Northern Ireland continues to address the skills shortage that must be resolved in order to attract significant investment and encourage major industry players into the region. This comes at a time when Ulster University’s Economic Policy Centre recently published a report showing that Northern Ireland needs more than 5,000 additional workers a year in order to grow the economy. The Northern Ireland Skills Barometer 2023-2033 highlights that the fastest growing occupations in terms of demand are “high value” jobs such as roles in data analytics, cyber-security and IT – all areas that our universities are investing heavily in.

The skills agenda also presents a crucial opportunity for greater collaboration between higher education and further education providers. This has been effectively demonstrated through partnerships between Ulster University, Queen’s University Belfast, and further education colleges through the Assured Skills Academies, a programme designed to equip individuals with the expertise required by employers.

Funded by the Department for the Economy, these academies provide fully funded training in high-demand sectors such as software development, cyber-security, and engineering.

One such example of collaboration is the Data Analytics Assured Skills Academy, delivered by Belfast Met and Ulster University in collaboration with PwC, which offers specialised training in AI, machine learning, and data analytics to prepare participants for careers in tech and finance.

PwC was encouraged to form this collaboration based on the firm belief that change and transformation skills are increasingly needed to support our clients through complex change. We want to see >

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COVER STORY

Cat McCusker, PwC regional market leader in Northern Ireland

this type of demand led skills development scaled up to support our future workforce needs.

Beyond teaching and research, universities also drive regional prosperity by spinning out new companies and commercialising leading research. Ulster University currently has 19 active spin-out companies, which collectively generate over £50m in annual turnover and employ more than 700 staff. At Queen’s University, approximately 100 spin-out companies have been created through QUBIS Ltd., its commercial arm. These companies have collectively delivered £396m in revenue and created almost 4,000 jobs.

Moreover, universities in Northern Ireland are playing a crucial role in addressing societal challenges such as chronic health issues, health inequalities and social mobility. A prime example is iREACH Health, a £62m integrated clinical research centre under the BRCD, led by Queen’s University Belfast in collaboration with the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and HSC Research & Development Division.

By bringing together experts from academia, healthcare, and industry, iREACH will drive the development and testing of medicines, technologies, and therapies, with the ultimate goal of improving clinical care outcomes.

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The long-term financial sustainability of universities is closely linked to their ability to drive regional growth. Forming partnerships with regional stakeholders not only enhances our universities’ relevance and reputation but also enables universities to diversify their income streams, reducing reliance on traditional funding models while reinforcing their civic mission. A strategic partnership between Ulster University, Randox Laboratories, Invest Northern Ireland, and Heartsine Technologies led to the establishment of the Advanced Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at Ulster University.

It is crucial to expand the sector to continue to attract and retain young people in Northern Ireland. This can be achieved by creating a vibrant and supportive environment that offers ample career opportunities, modern facilities, and a high quality of life. Efforts should also be made to counter the ‘brain drain’ by attracting young people from Great Britain and internationally, showcasing Northern Ireland as an attractive destination for education and career growth.

Unfortunately, the current funding model for higher education in Northern Ireland is unsustainable, with tuition fees capped lower than other UK regions. This creates

a funding gap that limits investment in teaching, research, and student support.

Despite this, our universities excel, but the imbalance threatens their sustainability, reduces opportunities for local students, and undermines Northern Ireland’s ability to attract and retain talent. A fair solution is needed to enable our universities to thrive as drivers of economic and social development.

Universities in the devolved nations, and Northern Ireland in particular, have a unique opportunity to drive regional growth and prosperity. By aligning their missions with regional priorities, forming deep, long-term partnerships between regional education institutions, businesses and public bodies are central to universities’ ability to create increased value for both themselves and their regions.

As the UK government continues to emphasise regional devolution and place-based growth, universities must seize this moment to redefine their roles as catalysts for regional development. We believe that we have the capability in Northern Ireland to capitalise in this opportunity, and that creating these clusters of innovation should be at the heart of a long term economic plan for Northern Ireland. ■

TOURISM

Creating giant experiences across Northern Ireland Delivering world-class tourism experiences under the Embrace a Giant Spirit brand is key to bringing growing visitor numbers here, writes Eimear Callaghan of Tourism Northern Ireland

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uite simply, creating things to do and see is the starting point of any tourism development.

When recalling a memorable holiday, it’s very often the moments of delight and surprise that will be the highlight of the experience.

More than ever now, people are seeking authentic and immersive tourism experiences that connect with the local culture, place and people.

Recent statistics from Get Your Guide’s 2024 Travel Experience Trend Tracker show that 98% of holidaymakers rate experiences as very or extremely important when considering where to go. Around 70% of visitors reported higher satisfaction when participating in immersive experiences, leading to a 30% increase in repeat visits to destinations and activities are the top reason holidaymakers would extend their stay.

Embrace a Giant Spirit In 2019, Tourism NI launched its experience brand Northern Ireland Embrace a Giant Spirit, a collective identity for the tourism industry and promise to visitors of unique, authentic tourism experiences which allow them to participate and get to the heart

The Belfast Food Tour is an award-winning experience

MARCH 2025

of the destination. The brand is designed to deliver a sustainable growth in visitors, establish Northern Ireland as an internationally compelling destination and encourage longer stays and spend locally.

The brand is based upon the essence of the visitor experience for those who visit Northern Ireland – the giant spirit of the people, authentic local experiences and the magnificence of the landscapes. Our giant promise, Northern Ireland Embrace a Giant Spirit means two things: sharing the giant spirit of Northern Ireland and awakening the giant spirit in our visitors.

Established tourism experience businesses have the opportunity to participate in Tourism NI’s Embrace a Giant Spirit Experience Portfolio; a continuous learning and development opportunity for established tourism experience businesses, aimed to increase the profitability, visitor appeal and commercialisation of our tourism experience industry.

Through participation, businesses can access enhanced learning and development opportunities structured around areas of scalability, growth, key market identification, marketing skills, commercial skills and travel trade readiness. They can also avail of networking opportunities, enhanced communication and product knowledge building opportunities.

Currently, 97 experience operators across the NI are engaged with the programme, of which 87% are micro, small or medium sized businesses and 68% are based outside of Belfast.

Food and drink tourism Food and drink are an important element of the overall tourism experience. Visitors are

Eimear Callaghan

keen to seek out and enjoy local specialties that are unique to Northern Ireland. They are also becoming more discerning, interested in the origins of ingredients and produce, as well as the journey they take to reach their plates.

The promotion of local food and drink has the potential to raise visitor satisfaction and help us deliver on our promise that Northern Ireland is a world-class destination.

Recent trends indicate that food and drink are increasingly becoming key motivators for travellers when choosing destinations.

People are spending more time and money on unique food and drink experiences. Visitors to Northern Ireland are spending £1.2bn annually, with food and drink accounting for approximately 35% of total visitor spend, approximately £420m.

Delivering world-class, well-designed experiences that embody the brand across Northern Ireland will require a collaborative effort from our tourism industry. Sharing the giant spirit of Northern Ireland reflects consumer perceptions of a warm, engaging and big-hearted place. It highlights our land as one built by pioneers and entrepreneurs, with a rich cultural history, reflected in words, music and craft, and woven together by a unique, elemental beauty. ■

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Greg Watson, Napier AI, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald and Kieran Donoghue, Invest NI

NEWS

AI firm creating 100 new NI jobs

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UK firm specialising in using artificial intelligence in compliance solutions is creating over 100 new jobs in here – paying average salaries of more than £46,000.

Napier AI provides anti-money laundering and anti-financial crime compliance solutions, and specialises in using AI and machine learning technologies to improve financial crime compliance for top banks.

The investment, including the opening of a new office in Belfast, was supported by economic development agency Invest NI. And Napier AI said it had passed up on opportunities to open in locations like Warsaw, Porto and Lisbon to launch in Belfast instead.

Around 25 of the jobs have been filled already, but the company said it will be recruiting in future for roles including software developers, business analysts, and programme managers.

Welcoming the company, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald said: “Napier’s decision to establish a base in the north is a vote of confidence in our skilled workforce and

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thriving fintech ecosystem.

“AI and machine learning are transforming financial crime prevention, and this investment enhances the north’s reputation as an emerging centre for AI-driven fintech innovation.

“Invest NI has worked closely with Napier AI to secure this significant investment, which will create 106 high-quality jobs with average salaries of over £46,000.

“These roles provide excellent opportunities for local talent, while hybrid working arrangements will help ensure greater regional balance and accessibility.”

According to the company, the new Belfast office “will play a key role in advancing its cutting-edge technologies while fostering innovation within Northern Ireland’s thriving fintech ecosystem”.

“We are delighted to launch our new office in Belfast,” Greg Watson, chief executive of Napier AI, said.

“The region’s exceptional talent pool, worldclass universities, and supportive business environment align perfectly with our mission

to make the world safer through intelligent compliance solutions.

“This investment represents an exciting milestone for Napier AI, and we are committed to delivering long-term value for both the local economy and our global clients.”

The company said its choice of Belfast followed “rigorous evaluation” of other global locations.

Kieran Donoghue, chief executive of Invest NI, said: “Attracting industry leaders like Napier AI is a key focus of our new business strategy which emphasises driving economic growth through high-value inward investment, innovation and the creation of quality jobs.

“AI is revolutionising financial services, and by choosing Northern Ireland, Napier AI joins a dynamic community of companies shaping the future of the sector.

“Once in place, the new roles will contribute almost £5m in additional annual salaries to our economy. We look forward to working with the company as it establishes and expands its presence here.” ■

NEWS

European aerospace company linked to deal for part of Spirit A new player could be looking at taking on a portion of the Spirit AeroSystems business in Northern Ireland, writes Margaret Canning

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European aerospace company has been linked to a deal for a chunk of the Spirit AeroSystems factory in east Belfast, it can be revealed.

Aerospace giant Bombardier said on a media call last week that it may do a deal with a third party which could continue to carry out work on its fuselages in east Belfast.

Speculation has now linked Montana Aerospace in Switzerland to that process.

A wing factory at the facility is to be sold by the middle of this year to Airbus, as US company Spirit is itself taken over by Boeing.

However, there are large parts of the operation doing manufacturing for Bombardier and Rolls-Royce which will not be part of the deal. Bombardier owned the operation between 1989 and 2020. There are a total of 2,700 people employed on the site.

A source in the US has said that Montana Aerospace could pick up the non-Airbus parts of the business and continue to carry out work for Bombardier.

On January 31, Spirit AeroSystems announced its shareholders had voted to approve the company’s acquisition by Boeing with the deal expected to close in the middle of this year.

But Spirit has to off-load operations which carry out work for a number of other companies including Airbus.

Airbus itself came forward last year to acquire a wing factory which is owned by Spirit AeroSystems in Belfast, and makes wings for Airbus A220 jets. Spirit also owns a manufacturing site in Prestwick, Scotland.

MARCH 2025

Spirit AeroSystems employs around 3,000 in Northern Ireland

On a recent media call, Bombardier chief executive Éric Martel was asked about a deal for the non-Airbus parts of the Belfast business.

Mr Martel said: “There’s a possibility we could be part of that transaction but also have the option that if there’s a credible buyer that would guarantee the delivery of our fuselages for the life of our programme, we are going to be comfortable with that solution also. Both scenarios remain on the table.”

A source in the US following the situation identified Montana Aerospace as a possible player. “They recently divested one of their businesses, which had helped them raised cash, and apparently they had been around the UK speaking with investors signalling their interest in doing smaller mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

“My sense it would either have been for Prestwick, Scotland or for the non-Airbus Belfast piece.

“My understanding is I think maybe Montana has done some work with Bombardier in the past so maybe they have the

opportunity to be that qualified third party buyer.”

Montana Aerospace has been asked for comment.

In early January, Airbus Commercial chief Christian Scherer said Spirit was making progress in its bid to sell the facility in Prestwick.

Asked about the Belfast deal to buy the wing factory, an Airbus spokesperson said: “We are still in on-going negotiations to sign the transaction in the coming weeks.

“While we cannot speculate on rumours around other third party interests, we are continuing to work with the UK Government and Northern Ireland Executive to stabilise and improve Spirit’s operations so as to safeguard aerospace skills and the supply chain to ensure we can support the longterm ramp-up of Airbus programmes.”

Bombardier said Mr Martel had visited Spirit AeroSystems in Belfast recently on his way to London, for an operations update on the work it carries out for the Canadian company. ■

21

IN FOCUS

‘The housing waiting list could grow to 70,000 if we don’t deal with backlog’ Northern Ireland is facing a major challenge over the number of homes being built here, a lack of sufficient funding for development, and within our water network. John Glass, chairman of Alpha Housing, speaks to John Mulgrew about why a doubling of funding could be needed and that the waiting list could grow further still if we don’t deal with that backlog 22

IN FOCUS

Alpha Housing’s Rachel Clarke and chairman John Glass

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here could be 60,000 to 70,000 people’ on the waiting list for a home here if funding isn’t doubled and more properties aren’t built, says John Glass.

John, who is chairman of Alpha Housing, says if more homes aren’t built to tackle the backlog here, we could be in a “worse position” than we are now.

Some 50,000 people are already waiting for a social home here.

“There could be 60,000 to 70,000 people on the waiting list – we haven’t dealt with the backlog,” he tells Ulster Business.

Alpha Housing has a team of around 70 people, and builds around 100 new homes each year, as well as spending around £3m on maintenance of properties, with some 25 sheltered schemes across Northern Ireland.

MARCH 2025

It operates around 1,000 homes, spread across Northern Ireland, and focuses on providing sheltered housing for older people, however it is now building a range of homes across NI through NIHE’s Social Housing Development Programme.

And John Glass of Alpha Housing says funding could need to “double” if we are to deal with the huge backlog.

John is also director of infrastructure and projects at Translink – working on major schemes such as the new Grand Central Station, and a former chairman of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), John says the current capital funding model for social housing here is “perfect” but that

“The population is growing, and there are more people on that waiting list – we need to proactively deal with that backlog.”

Plans are underway as part of the housing strategy to build 30,000 homes in the next 15 years.

But given the current rate of construction, John says we could be in a “worse position” in 15 years. “[There could be] 60,000 to 70,000 people on the waiting list – we haven’t dealt with the backlog,” he says.

“In England, the Housing Executive can retrofit properties, and make them more efficient. If you get money for decarbonising housing stock, you can retrofit insulation and

“we just need more of it”.

That allows housing associations to receive 60% of grant funding towards the building of social homes, and then borrow the remaining capital through bank finance.

“In GB, there isn’t that capital funding [model],” he said. “It means when we get a 60% grant to build houses, we borrow the other 40%. We can charge cheaper rents… as long as we cover the loan facility and maintain costs, we can provide really cheap rents for people in NI, and good quality homes.”

On the issue of wastewater connectivity – which a lack of is stymying development here – John says while it hasn’t hit the organisation yet “I know it is just waiting for us down the line as we continue to develop”.

“Some of our other colleagues have faced problems – with no drinking or wastewater provision.

“I think that is down to a lack investment in the past, and a lack of investment ongoing.

“London isn’t going to continue to bail us out unless we are raising money on our own.”

That could include NI Water being able to borrow more in order to fuel the work needed to upgrade and improve our wastewater network here.

Turning to the social housing backlog, John says Northern Ireland needs to catch up, otherwise it faces those numbers increasing further still.

There are now almost 50,000 people waiting for a home here in Northern Ireland. And John says at the current rate of new builds, and with a growing population, that number is only likely to rise – possibly to 60,000 to 70,000.

“How do you catch up on 50,000 people on a waiting list if you’re only building 2,000 homes a year?

reduce energy costs for tenants.

“I think the situation like that should be looked at [here], with funding for that.

“I think the model is right here in Northern Ireland for building new homes, but there is just not enough money.

“To catch up with this there has to be double the funding.”

John has a lengthy career as a civil engineer, working across the construction sector over the last three decades.

He started off as a civil engineer at McLaughlin and Harvey, and then went to Translink – delivering major schemes such as Belfast Grand Central, the new station in Derry, as well as being responsible for Translink’s assets, such as property, signalling and bridges.

“The highlight of that has been Belfast Grand Central,” he says. The next phase of the project will include the wider Weavers Cross development – a huge mixed-use development covering 1.2 million sq ft.

“I had been chair of ICE, and that came to an end about three years ago. Alpha then came up and I thought I could use some of my building and board experience with them.

“It’s been excellent. Other than having your health, the next thing you need is a comfortable and safe home – it’s been so satisfying being a part of that.”

“It’s probably the most successful vision of a public service [social housing] in Northern Ireland that is not a statutory body of the Executive. It’s a great model. We are by no means the largest, we are small and build around 100 new homes a year.

“For us, we feel that our organisation is a good business with good people – we have lots of entrepreneurial skills, but we want to maintain that social conscience.” ■

23

CORPORATE SERVICES

Paget-Brown Financial Services: the boutique firm expanding its global reach in Belfast For more than 40 years, Paget-Brown Financial Services has worked with a range of international clients from its base in the Cayman Islands. But it’s now set up a new office in Belfast, offering greater reach and flexibility for its customers, with the scope to grow further still across Europe, the Middle East and Asia

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aget-Brown Financial Services is a boutique corporate services firm which is growing and expanding its client offering and reach with a new base in Belfast.

The firm, which has its headquarters in the Cayman Islands, provides a full range of financial, regulatory and governance services

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for corporate, fund and trust clients.

It’s a company with a strong history – working with clients right across the globe across key areas such as corporate, governance and regulatory, typically with funds and SPVs (special purpose vehicles) for international financing transactions, as well as ultra-high net worth individuals and their family investment

companies.

While the firm, which has around 40 staff globally, boasts clients based around the world, it now has a base in Belfast with a team of experts delivering tailored and bespoke financial and company management solutions to a wide range of individuals and businesses.

“Our clients really are global,” Toni

Darren Leonard and Ryan Cooke with chief executive Toni Pinkerton

CORPORATE SERVICES

better access to really qualified people.

“A lot of clients are based in different time zones. Having that team in the UK time zone means we can deal with a lot of requests, in real time, before the Cayman office comes online. So there is a real synchronicity there.”

Established in 1981, Paget-Brown Financial Services has delivered high-quality services

Paget-Brown Financial Services’ Jonny Henry, Charlotte Partington-McDermott, Paul Lyons, Toni Pinkerton, chief executive, director Ryan Cooke, Aisling Toner, and associate director Darren Leonard

Pinkerton, chief executive and a director of Paget-Brown Financial Services, said.

“Having the office in Belfast will help us access opportunities in new regions as a result of the proximity, while improving service for our clients outside of North American time zones.”

That talent pool in Belfast will now help the firm expand, both locally, and with its existing client base – with the extended time zone coverage strengthening the firm’s client service model, especially for those based in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“The move into Belfast also gives us access to a strong talent base,” Toni said.

“This is a critical success factor because it allows us to continue to strengthen our client service model while supporting our clients’ growth and expanding into new markets.”

Ryan Cooke, a director – who is from Northern Ireland – says while the company considered other locations for its new office, the primary justification was the access to great people.

“You have big firms working in Belfast –

MARCH 2025

pumping out really experienced and welltrained people, and the two universities, with really qualified people for the areas of focus which we have as a business,” he said.

He said the firm’s strength is its “boutique” nature – developing “tailored services to clients”.

“We aren’t taking a square peg and trying to push it into a round hole,” he said. “We can be agile and adjust more easily. We forge a partnership with our clients, and often go further than some providers and get more embedded, and therefore more entrusted – that gives us a greater line of sight.”

He said it’s also about “the people” within the firm, which clients will be working with – building strong relationships, rapport and trust.

Darren Leonard heads up the Belfast team, and works across corporate and government services.

“We now have a team in Belfast working and building out the governance function, which feeds into the office in Cayman,” he said.

“We are growing the Belfast office to bring talent in for other areas, such as regulatory and compliance services. The city is quickly being seen as having a brilliant talent pool, with

to clients for over 40 years. The organisation prides itself on its deep commitment to clientcentric solutions, reliability and integrity.

Ryan and Darren are both alumni of Ulster University – studying the MSc in Management and Corporate Governance which is affiliated with The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland qualification – and began their careers here before working across different locations globally.

“On the regulatory and compliance side of things, we are finding great candidates to choose from in what might be considered niche positions,” Darren said.

The firm’s decision to open up in Belfast stemmed from a strategic drive to broaden its reach and capitalise on the expertise in the local market.

And with Northern Ireland’s thriving business environment, a strong network of industries, and an increasingly sophisticated client base, the company sees significant opportunities to offer increased support to existing clients and build relationships and solutions for new clients.

The firm’s Northern Ireland’s focus will largely mirror that of the Cayman Islands office, partnering with clients for the provision of corporate and governance services, fund administration and regulatory and compliance services.

The team has extensive experience working in different markets across the world, each with separate regulatory requirements and environments.

“There is a real understanding among our people – it’s not just that we’ve seen it, we’ve also worked in those jurisdictions, implemented and, practiced local regulations, and fully understand them,” Ryan says. ■

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BANKING & FINANCE

Powering further growth with fresh working capital finance Ulster Bank is now offering customers a new trade loan facility, backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF).

Manufacturer Maxflow Power Products is the first company to avail of the new product as it looks to grow and expand its reach across the UK, Ireland and beyond

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yan Wylie has big plans for expansion at his manufacturing business Maxflow Power Products.

The firm, which provides a wide range of industrial washers and power products, is accelerating its growth – backed by a new finance package from Ulster Bank, which is guaranteed by UK Export Finance (UKEF).

“We carry upwards of 400,000 parts across 8,000 lines – it’s a large range of products,” Ryan Wylie says.

“We are a pressure washer and generator manufacturer, providing spare parts for that range – it’s quite vast. We have the largest selection of power products in the UK and Ireland, and that’s part of reason we have such a wide customer base.”

Maxflow currently has a team of around 23 staff, but as a result of its expansion it’s eyeing hiring between six and 10 new staff members.

“We have grown exponentially over the last five years – we are about four times the size,” Ryan says.

Ryan, who co-owns the business with operations director, Cameron Hewitt, says the new funding from Ulster Bank – alongside other finance facilities with the bank – will help the firm grow further still, with fresh working capital.

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“The facility allows us to continue to invest in stock to further our growth, while the business continues to develop its capital projects.”

The UKEF schemes enable the provision of a trade facility where the bank has appetite to support a viable proposition, where insufficient collateral is available through an increase in the total value of trade, or other credit, facilities to the customer.

“Trade loans have been available across the group for many years, and we have just launched with Ulster Bank, aligning the product across the brands,” Ross Currie, trade finance director at NatWest, said.

“It’s tailored working capital solution tied directly into the customer’s needs and trade cycles.

“We see it being used to help fund areas such as supplier payments and stock purchases.

They play a big part in working capital for imports and export, as well as supporting domestic trade.

Ross says the facility offers firms from across the sectors, not just within manufacturing, a strong working capital pipeline.

“We have a large number of face-to-face relationship managers, supported by trade finance specialists, and are meeting local people and businesses,” he said.

Ryan Wylie, managing director of Maxflow Power Products with Leona McNicholl, senior relationship manager at Ulster Bank

“The product couldn’t have arrived at a better time for Ulster Bank. With challenges in the economy and with the cost of business going up, they are eating into working capital.”

That includes rising shipping costs, and alongside delays, leading to lengthening trade cycles for firms.

“The product is universal and can apply to every single sector,” Ross says.

“We are keen to spread the word to firms in Northern Ireland, letting them know that this is available.”

Maxflow’s ability to grow as a business has been furthered by UKEF and Ulster Bank’s financial support which also recently included a multi-million-pound support package for a management buy out (MBO).

BANKING & FINANCE

Maxflow Power Products Limited is the first company in NI that has been awarded the UKEF-backed facility from Ulster Bank.

Ryan Wylie, who is a Chartered Accountant, said the business has continued to grow since the management buy-out in May. “Since 2021, Cameron and I have had operational control, and in this period we have rapidly expanded the business and facilitated the recent MBO. “We are now pushing into new export markets. With that brings additional stock – you need that to be able to service customers, and that takes time to build up.

“A lot of our items forecast with suppliers can have lead times of six to 12 months. That’s where our experience comes in.

MARCH 2025

“As we continue to grow, our stock continues to increase, and this facility allows the funding of this trade cycle.

“When a customer comes to us for something, we always have it. Maxflow’s growth is built on customers knowing that we can deliver.

“This is why we have attracted customers who may have been with other suppliers, and gained market share in the last five years across Northern Ireland and the Republic.”

Ross Currie says the bank is able to do a deep dive into a customer’s trade cycle, and then develop a suitable finance package on the back of that.

“It’s looking at key timescales: when they need to sort suppliers, stock that needs to be

held, manufactured, the time to receive goods, shipping to the customer and then payment time – building that into a facility which works for them.

“The availability of working capital is one of the big inhibitors for firms. Knowing facilities such as this are out there and can help is an opportunity.”

An Ulster Bank Trade Loan can offer customers a more cost-effective finance method, and may provide higher amounts of working capital compared to some other funding methods. ■

27

INTERVIEW

Rajesh Rana:

further expansion for leading NI hotel group Rajesh Rana, director of Andras House, speaks to James McNaney about the company’s latest Travelodge acquisition, north coast expansion, preparation for The Open and plans for new concepts including an aparthotel

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ndras House has been busy in the last year.

The group has announced multiple newbuilds and acquisitions, and as Northern Ireland’s largest hotel owner, it is seeking to grow even more.

The company’s accounts for the last year showed turnover getting close to £50m.

Its latest venture was the purchase of a Travelodge on Belfast’s Brunswick Street, which will see it become the only franchise operator of the brand in Northern Ireland.

Rajesh Rana, director of Andras House, said that it was an opportunity he didn’t want to pass up.

“We’ve purchased the hotel, Travelodge, Belfast Central, and we’re going to own and operate it under the franchise from Travelodge UK,” he said.

“The reason is that it’s a great asset in a central location and as a good fit for our company.

“Travelodge is a very well-known brand and is very well respected. They are now embarking on a process of upgrading and refurbishing all of their estate.

“We’ll be investing in this hotel to match that new look, and hope to start that work next year.

“We want to bring it up to the same look and concepts as the rest of the Travelodge estates across the UK. “There will be new designs to the public areas and the bedrooms, a fresh new look,

28

upgrades to the bedroom, bathrooms and the reception area.”

The purchase has been completed in partnership with Danske Bank, which has provided the funding for other recent Andras buys.

Mr Rana added: “Danske Bank have been very supportive, and they recognise the underlying strength of our company and the opportunity of acquiring this asset.

“They’ve been very positive on this transaction and good to work with.”

He says its growth plans have mixed organic growth and acquisitions.

“Our growth strategy is a combination of building new hotels from the ground up, but also looking at opportunities as they may occur for acquisition.

“We have acquired a couple of assets in the past year, such as the Ibis Coleraine Riverside, which was a Premier Inn. “We’re also looking to start new constructions. We’re on site with the Marcus Portrush, which will be part one of the Hilton brands called Tapestry collection by Hilton.

“We’re speaking to contractors at the moment to start the Adagio in Great Victoria Street in Belfast and we just launched the planning application for a hotel in Shaftesbury Square.”

The Adagio will be an aparthotel, part of what Mr Rana describes as a “new concept” of “extended stay hotels” for the province.

“Extended stay means you can still book it

for one night, but typically people tend to book for multiple nights.

“This may be three or four nights, a couple of weeks or even a month or two.

“With Airbnb, people probably like a bit more space and some more facilities.

“So the aparthotels have kitchenettes and separate living areas from the bed space.

“There are studio apartments and one bedroom apartments, so it gives people a bit more flexibility and more space if they’re looking for a longer stay.

“We think it’s a good compliment to our group and could fit well in the local market.”

The Shaftesbury Square hotel will be a 165room YOTEL, part of a chain launched by YO! Sushi founder Woodroffe.

It’s due to open in late 2026. It will be the eighth YOTEL in the UK and also the first in Ireland.

The Marcus Hotel is one of several north coast venues either being built or being extensively renovated ahead of the return of the Open Championship to Royal Portrush in July.

Mr Rana previously confirmed that the work is still going all-out for the “hard deadline” of July and that “we’re hoping to finish construction in April and get the hotel open, certainly before the Open”.

Even before launching, Mr Rana said there is interest in the rooms as they are “speaking to a number of golf operators”.

“It’s a great location, and it’s a great asset that the Hilton brand really adds to. It’s going to

INTERVIEW

Rajesh Rana pictured at the Hampton by Hilton hotel

be very busy this summer.”

He has watched the growth of golf tourism here with interest.

“There’s Dunluce Lodge opening shortly, which is very much geared towards the golf market, particularly the high-end golf market.

“Then there’s the acquisition of the Adelphi and the Atlantic. There are other operators coming in, really specialist golf tour providers.

They package up the accommodation and the golf experience.

“I think The Open has really put Portrush on the map of the international golf market.”

Andras House has a large and diverse range of properties. The Crowne Plaza caters to conferences and events, the Marcus will target golf tourism and there are luxury brands as well as budget hotels.

Mr Rana sees this diversity as a “strength” of the business.

“Most of our hotels are in Belfast and on the north coast, but we do diversify across different brands and levels of hotel from

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upscale to mid-scale.”

He feels that the growth of hotels across Belfast will help the tourism sector expand.

“Belfast as a destination suffered from a lack of newbuilds and a lack of rooms in the past couple of years.

“Tourism NI and Visit Belfast have very ambitious figures for tourism here, that will only help them deliver on their objectives.

“There are bodies that track demand, and if you look at the macroeconomic situation, they are projecting continued increases in demand over the next few years.

“I think people are still wanting to travel more, and as other markets open up across the world, I think we’re in a very strong position to attract those tourists.”

During 2024, turnover at the company grew by 21.5% compared to the previous year, reaching almost £48m from £39m.

The business was founded in 1981 by Rajesh Rana’s father, Lord Rana. He started building what would become a portfolio of properties

with the Belfast Plaza Hotel, which opened in 1990.

This was the first new hotel to open in the city centre for 20 years. The company then added the Holiday Inn Express on University Street, which opened in 1996, and Renshaw’s on Botanic Avenue.

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph in 2023, Lord Rana described how its expansion picked up pace after 1998.

“After the Good Friday Agreement, we opened others like the Belfast Crowne Plaza, the Holiday Inn at Hope Street and the Hampton by Hilton. We have recently acquired two other hotels, one in Coleraine and one in Portrush,” he said.

“For business, peace and stability is essential, and because of that, the economy in Northern Ireland flourished.

“Tourism particularly has flourished, but people once thought I was mad building hotels in that situation where buildings were being blown up.” ■

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Alan Campbell

ENERGY

SONI: expanding its key energy role and preparing for our net zero future The System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI) has launched its new fiveyear strategy as the organisation managing our electricity transmission system. But chief executive Alan Campbell says it’s planning to expand its role here, working closer with industry partners and government to help achieve our renewable energy goals while maintaining security of supply

N

orthern Ireland and the wider world are going through considerable changes in how we generate and handle our power – heading towards a green, net zero future.

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The System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI) has its primary role and responsibility over the electricity transmission system and market here.

But as part of its vision for the next five

years, it wants to expand upon that, with an enhanced role, collaborating closely with all stakeholders with a plan-led approach, and as a trusted adviser using evidence-based methods.

SONI’s control room in Belfast

ENERGY

“We are moving to an evolving energy system,” Alan Campbell, SONI chief executive, says.

“There is policy ambition to move away from imported fossil fuels – it’s about how we deliver that, and how we plan for that energy future – with new targets [of 80% renewable generation by 2030] which will be challenging.”

SONI has just unveiled its new Strategy for 2025-2031, outlining its role, and others, in developing an energy future for Northern Ireland – with a focus on the transition to renewable energy, along with how that is managed, as well as maintaining security of supply.

The organisation says it recognises the importance of enhanced collaboration in order to deliver decarbonisation.

“Our future work will require much closer working together with NIE Networks in its capacity as transmission asset owner, and distribution system operators, as well as the gas transmission system operators, to ensure the alignment of investments.”

Alan Campbell says SONI’s new strategy can be broken down into four main areas.

“Firstly, it’s about how we plan the upgrades to the grid, which are needed, as well as having a grid with more flexibility,” he says.

“Once it was four or five power stations, while now we have a much more diverse portfolio of generation – such as solar and wind farms. We have to balance that with traditional fossil fuel power plants and interconnectors, looking at security of supply across the island.”

SONI advises on the future direction of the power system, plans the changes and investments that are required, in both an

MARCH 2025

operational and physical context, and delivers on these plans through key projects and initiatives.

“The second area is around delivery – how do we deliver these changes?” Alan says.

“Traditional power plants provide stability on the grid – wind and solar farms don’t provide that same level of stability. We have to decarbonise the whole system and it’s about how we do that and develop an electricity market in a cost-competitive way which is the best value for consumers.

“Our job is to make sure we can operate the system as effectively as possible.”

That will see SONI working closely with NIE Networks and developing greater connectivity.

That includes the second phase of the North South Interconnector, as well as bringing power generation from more rural areas into those with higher demands.

And on that renewable generation, Alan says Northern Ireland will roughly need a doubling of wind and solar – rising to 3GW. “The wind doesn’t’ always blow, and we are also creatures of habit. It won’t always blow at peak times, so energy storage is also key.”

Part of that challenge comes with ensuring that SONI plays its part in establishing connections for new generation.

“We advocate a position in which we have a more planned development,” Alan says. “It’s about what’s the best outcome for consumers – making sure we have the right technology, the correct places on the grid, and storage close to where the renewable energy is being generated.”

There remain wider government goals around regional balancing, and ensuring that energy is generated where it is needed.

Alan says as experts in energy transmission,

with significant data resources, it can also position itself as a trusted adviser to government and the Utility Regulator.

“It is a very challenging timeline,” he says.

“We recognise if we keep up the ‘business as usual’ approach we are going to fall short.

“SONI has to change some of the things it does. We have published an action plan looking at how we can accelerate aspects of the development process, with the option of streamlining the regulatory process.

“We work closely with NIE Networks on the delivery of these projects – it’s a new way of working which brings us a lot closer together.”

There also remain challenges around the timelines in getting renewable energy schemes in the ground.

“There are challenges around planning in Northern Ireland – with timelines in getting planning consent,” Alan says. “We would welcome some reform in the planning space which gives priority for renewable schemes.”

Alan says with the ultimate goal around decarbonisation and the policy surrounding it still fresh, engagement with colleagues across Ireland and UK remain key in understanding the challenges around grid delivery.

“We want to streamline projects as much as possible,” he says. “It’s going to be a challenging few years ahead, but ultimately we are making strides in how we deliver on the road to net zero. It’s about taking the right decisions.”

“Our day job is that we keep the security of supply for Northern Ireland – in the short-term it’s a challenge as we witness a phase out of the older fossil fuel plants and the issues around managing a grid in which you have intermittent renewable sources.

“As we move away from that, the Moyle Interconnector remains valuable, it’s why the second North South Interconnector is so important to us, and why another potential interconnector to Scotland has been proposed.

“SONI is a key enabler for economic growth in Northern Ireland. We are open for businesses in Northern Ireland. We want to make sure that the grid is ready and we are able to have that clean energy future – it’s about stepping up and delivering that plan.” ■

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NEWS

Huge 800-bedroom student accommodation building given green light on appeal Plans for a new student accommodation development in Belfast have been successfully appealed after being initially turned down for permission, writes John Mulgrew

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decision to refuse plans for one of the largest student accommodation buildings in Northern Ireland has been overturned.

The huge student scheme, with some 795 rooms, was recommended for approval by planners at Belfast City Council in 2023, located close to Library Street and Little Donegall Street in the city centre, a former Belfast Telegraph car park.

But the planning committee instead voted to refuse the application.

However, following an appeal, the major development could now be built – after being given the go ahead by the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC).

At the time it was recommended for approval, Colin Donaldson, director with developer Mandeville Developments NI, said “we understand from both universities and the further education college that demand for quality managed accommodation in the city will continue to grow and outstrip approved or existing supply.”

He said the business had held “positive engagement” with business and the community in the area, and would respect the character of nearby listed buildings.

They include the former Belfast Telegraph site on Royal Avenue, while an Art Deco-style building nearby is to be turned into Belfast Stories, a visitors centre for the city.

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Some of the issues raised with the scheme previously included that it would impact the delivery of housing in the area, public open space for new housing, and that it was “out of keeping” with the area.

But on the issue of the impact on housing, and social housing schemes in the area, the PAC said as there are no expired schemes or approved schemes in the area “I am unable conclude that the appeal proposal would prejudice delivery of social housing on the adjacent site”.

“I conclude that the appeal proposal would deliver [student accommodation] and public realm/open space which would further… the intention of creating a new city centre neighbourhood that incorporates a mix of uses, including residential, commercial, retail and leisure all integrated through a strong and cohesive public realm.”

On the appearance and design of the building, the PAC said it did “not consider that that the scale, form and massing of the appeal building would represent a discordant feature in the local context”.

The plans would also include a café and retail offering, as well as communal facilities and an internal courtyard.

If work now begins on the building it will become one of the largest to be developed in the city.

Watkin Jones and Lacuna Developments is planning to build a student scheme with more than 1,000 rooms in the Titanic Quarter. The development was given the go ahead last year.

It would also include a café, shared lounges, dining areas, games rooms, study spaces, launderettes and gyms.

Speaking at the time of the green light, George Dyer, group investment director of Watkin Jones, said, it would “will help to address the growing need for [student] accommodation in Belfast whilst supporting a sustainable and safe community for living, working, and leisure. Residents will benefit from excellent transport links which will be further enhanced through the green travel fund, proximity to the city centre, and nearby developments including Titanic Belfast, SSE Arena, and Titanic Studios.” ■

CONSTRUCTION

Colin Mounstephen of Deloitte

Decade low number of major construction schemes for Belfast

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ust five new major buildings broke ground in the last year – marking an almost decade low.

Some five scheme began work last year.

That was down from seven in 2023 and nine 2022, according to the Deloitte Regional Crane Survey for Belfast.

And no new office blocks were completed in Belfast last year, for the first time since the survey began in 2016.

“For the first time, the Belfast Crane Survey recorded no new office completions, with the recent trend towards refurbishments outweighing interest in new builds,” it said.

“When construction starts on the new Kainos office on Dublin Road in 2025 it will be the first new build office start since 2020, when work commenced on The Paper Exchange and Olympic House.”

A total of 17 schemes were completed or under construction in 2024.

Student accommodation and hotels were the key drivers of the construction sector for large-scale projects during the year.

The report monitors construction activity in Belfast across a range of sectors including

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offices, residential, hotels, retail, education and student housing, and is seen as a barometer of developer sentiment and future plans.

Higher education continued to drive change in Belfast, with three new student accommodation projects representing 1,224 rooms under construction.

The report notes that the most significant project completed in 2024 was Grand Central Station, the largest integrated transport hub in Ireland, which began welcoming passengers towards the end of the year.

Just one hotel was completed during the year – The Flint – and one new start, but the survey also reported signs of a new wave of hotel developments, with over 2,000 hotel rooms in the planning pipeline.

“The growth of the purpose-built student accommodation is a reminder of the importance of Queen’s University and Ulster University to Belfast,” Marie Doyle, partner at Deloitte in Belfast, said.

“The student accommodation market is now mature and offering significant economic impact, and with Belfast Region

City Deal research and development projects commencing, we expect higher education to remain a positive driver for the city.

“But alongside the growing visitor and temporary student populations, a permanent city centre residential population remains a key objective for sustaining a successful city centre. It is also proving to be the toughest nut to crack for Belfast.

“To have a vibrant and lively city centre, it needs people, so creating appealing homes that encourage people to stay in the centre when they enter the workforce remains the essential next step.”

Colin Mounstephen, director at Deloitte in Belfast, said: “Undoubtedly, many eyes will be on the Loft Lines residential development in Titanic Quarter, which will act as a proof of concept for the wider market.

“However, if the city wants to attract people it cannot afford to wait and observe Loft Lines, it needs to strengthen the liveability of the city centre, for example with more walking, cycling and green spaces to complement the city’s traditional retail and leisure offering.” ■

TRAVEL & TOURISM

Flights of fancy

TRAVEL & TOURISM

Katy Best, commercial director, Belfast City Airport

Travellers are combining business with pleasure on their trips abroad, with new direct routes opening to locations such as Morocco. But is the lack of a transatlantic corridor from NI stopping the traffic?

Pavel Barter takes a closer look

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usiness travellers are becoming more strategic with their time and travelling less but for longer periods, according to NI travel agents.

In the past, sales directors and teams might have taken three or four international trips a year but “now there is a trend of people who are travelling less, but getting more value for the time they are away”, Shauna Burns, managing director of Belfast-based Beyond Business Travel, says.

Local firms are combining business with leisure on international trips. “Corporate travellers are extending their business trips

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for personal time,” Shauna says. “We see a lot more people bringing their families, doing meetings and then having a holiday”.

A survey of 1,000 SMEs in 2024, conducted

by Censuswide, found that 48% planned to incorporate leisure time into business trips. “Bleisure” hybrid trips are facilitated in Northern Ireland through a thriving post-Covid travel network out of three airports: Belfast International Airport (BFS), George Best Belfast City Airport (BHD), and City of Derry Airport (CoDA).

Local airlines and airports are expecting a myriad of trends in 2025 across leisure

and business. A Ryanair spokesperson told Ulster Business that Stansted, Edinburgh and Manchester are their most popular routes out of BFS. The airport is headed by chief executive Daniel Owens.

Demand with other airlines out of BHD for sunshine destinations such as Palma de Mallorca are performing “exceptionally well” in 2025, according to Katy Best, commercial director at the airport.

Aer Lingus, despite its recent cancellation of services between Belfast City and Newcastle in England, is offering “increased frequencies” to Edinburgh which has up to four daily flights, Manchester (up to three flights a day), and Birmingham (six daily). Alongside BHD’s British Airways flights to London City, easyJet fly from City Airport to London Gatwick and London Luton – bringing the total number of flights per day from BHD to London to 16.

In summer 2024, easyJet operated their “biggest ever flying programme in Northern Ireland, up 14% compared to the previous

TRAVEL & TOURISM

Shauna Burns, managing director of Belfast-based Beyond Business Travel

year, and we flew over 5.2 million customers,” says Ali Gayward, easyJet’s UK Country Manager. Over summer 2025, easyJet plan to operate 48 routes from BFS, BHD and CoDA to 13 countries across Europe and North Africa.

“We have increased our summer flying programme to Spanish beach destinations including Tenerife, Malaga, and Alicante by 15% from Belfast International compared to last year,” Ali continues. “Spain, Portugal, France, and Turkey are currently among the most popular destinations this summer.”

The airline extended four of its winter routes to operate throughout summer 2025, providing connectivity from CoDA to Liverpool and Edinburgh and BFS to Lanzarote and Prague. EasyJet is launching a new route from Belfast International to Reus in Spain on 5 April. Belfast City is continuing a new double daily KLM service to Amsterdam.

Katy Best at BHD notices “a growing appetite for international connectivity, especially via hubs such as Heathrow,

MARCH 2025

Manchester, and Amsterdam”. Shauna Burns has seen an upswing in clients travelling to Singapore and Hong Kong. “South America and Rio de Janeiro are new trends,” says Shauna. “Entrepreneurs are negotiating deals in supply chain and sales. There are a lot of resilient manufacturing and tech businesses out there which we facilitate.”

TUI will meet some of this demand with a new route to Mexico from Belfast International that launches in June 2025. However, USA, “the most popular [international] travel destination” for people from Northern Ireland, according to Shauna, is underserviced. Outside a handful of flights from BFS to Orlando each summer, there are no direct flights to the US. The NI Executive’s Draft Programme for Government 2024-2027, published last September, commits to “work with the UK government to support pre-clearance between the United States and Belfast International Airport, promoting international investment and innovation.” A purpose-built facility,

similar to the one in Dublin Airport, would allow passengers to undergo immigration and customs inspections prior to travelling to the US. There have been no significant corridors between Belfast and the US since 2017 when United ceased its Newark to Belfast route (citing poor financial performance). Emma Little-Pengelly, Deputy First Minister, told the Executive last September the situation has changed due to “huge foreign direct investment from the US to Northern Ireland…

When we speak to US investors, they want to invest more and they raise that issue about the connectivity and the direct flight. I think that is a priority for us.”

A spokesperson for the Department for the Economy (DfE) told Ulster Business they have explored “the possibility of extending pre-clearance services to Belfast International Airport” with the Department for Transport (DfT). “The DfT advised that the decision on whether to operate such facilities at airports >

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TRAVEL & TOURISM

Daniel Owens, chief executive of Belfast International Airport

overseas ultimately rests with US authorities.

DfT has committed to entering into exploratory talks with the United States administration.

DfE will do all they can to facilitate these discussions.”

Travellers – business travellers in particular – prioritise convenience in 2025, which works to the advantage of the strategically located City of Derry Airport and Belfast City. “Over 44% of our passengers travel for business,” Katy Best said.

“Our location [close to] the city centre, combined with our fast security processing times, allow business passengers to maximise their time and get to their destination faster.

Fast track is so important to business travel.”

BHD has streamlined passenger travel with improved parking options and drop-off and pick-up zones. Technology improves convenience too. Belfast City recently completed a £3m investment project which upgraded its security processing.

Convenience is matched with a demand for sustainable air travel. Business clients present

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sustainability strategies to Shauna Burns “and we work with them to build that into their travel policy. Before they book [a journey], we give them information about their flight route and the CO2 emissions they are going to generate. We can then offer them options for reduced carbon emissions and opportunities to offset emissions. We also give them the data to ensure they can meet their reporting compliance.”

Airports have increased their sustainability agendas. In 2020, Belfast City became the first airport in Northern Ireland to join the Airport Carbon Accreditation programme.

“We focus on maximising the use of renewable energy, minimising resource use and eliminating carbon emissions under our direct control,” Katy Best says. This includes the use of hydrotreated vegetable oil fuel across their fleet of airside vehicles and equipment, a recent upgrade of main apron lighting to energy-efficient LED systems, and the installation of electric vehicle charging

stations in parking areas. “Our sustainability efforts extend beyond the environment to our people and the community. Over the past 15 years, we have supported more than 226 local projects, raising over £651,000,” Katy says.

Tourism NI and Tourism Ireland are continuing a programme to support and drive demand for direct air (and sea) services to Northern Ireland. Last year Tourism Ireland partnered with easyJet, Ryanair, Stena Line, British Airways and Loganair and “will undertake similar activity in 2025”, according to a spokesperson.

And the passenger cap in Dublin, which limits the number of passengers who can pass through the airport to 32 million, may yet work in the region’s favour. Last October, Ryanair vowed to move additional routes to Belfast International due to restrictions in Dublin. The airline has yet to have a presence in BHD though. “I don’t believe there are any immediate plans to operate in Belfast City Airport,” a spokesperson said. ■

TRAVEL & TOURISM

Retracing my relative’s steps in beautiful Tahiti In 1921, his ancestor threw in a job at the bank and fled.

Iain Macdonald followed his path

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hen Scottish watercolour painter William Alister Macdonald disembarked from the SS Arawa in 1921 with his young English lover, Dorothy Myhill, on to the pier in Papeete – the administrative centre of Tahiti and all of French Polynesia – he was captured by the view of the island of Moorea.

Over 100 years later, my wife and I, garlanded in fragrant frangipani, gazed at the timeless spectacle of the sun setting over the multipeaked island of dreams, a paradise worthy of 22 hours on an Air Tahiti Nui Dreamliner.

My great-great uncle remarked that “no writing is of much use as regards the Beauty Glamour of the Islands... they must be seen and felt”.

The American writers (and his best friends) Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall of Mutiny on the Bounty fame, and Zane Gray, then the biggest selling author in the world, all did their best to describe “these islands of sheer fancy” (as Nordhoff and Hall wrote in 1921), that so enraptures many to this day. And like Gray, we “gazed until our eyes ached”.

So here we were, ready for the Polynesian island experience.

Getting to Moorea the morning after arriving in Papeete can be done by a quick, but turbulent hop on a twin-propeller plane, or by boarding the powerful Aremiti ferry, which takes a brisk 45 minutes past the reef into the

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Pacific swell. And this was our preferred route.

The sun deck offers travellers wind in their hair and first-class views of the islands, sometimes even a pod of whales.

The air is full of anticipation among those travelling to Moorea, mostly tourists, honeymooners and others seeking second honeymoons – like Sinead and I. There are also locals on the boat, there to trade, work, to spend weekends or return from school.

Whatever the reason, a warm smile from the hostess with a flower in her hair greets each passenger.

We had spent our first night in a five-star hotel near the airport. Arriving late at night, we wanted the guaranteed comfort that international luxury hotels market to exhausted US and European travellers.

The one benefit of jet lag is that you get to the pool first, to indulge in the cool morning air and the view of Moorea while you have the place to yourself.

Refreshed and reactivated, we were ready to experience a more individual holiday in Moorea.

Our accommodation was a beach-side cabin bungalow with a small veranda and a simple yet perfectly appointed kitchen and bathroom decorated in mosaics of pretty seashells, and sprays of fragrant hibiscus flowers on palm leaves.

The dawn chorus was like no other I’ve known: roosters competing for attention, then the gentle chirping of the diminutive zebra

dove, and then the cackling of the noddy, a palm nesting seabird.

The noddy is useful to navigators at sea, as like the frigatebird, it indicates that land is near. It’s one for mariners to follow in the late afternoon, as the birds return to land to nest.

Under the shade of coconut trees, our cabin was similar in size but more robust than the one with walls of woven palm fronds and a thatched roof in which my great-great uncle had spent his last years.

He lived in Cook’s Bay, where he was cared for by his Tahitian daughter Avril and his six grandchildren (within three years his English lover had gone home, to be replaced by Tahitian-born Tipari Tuera).

Two lovebirds in paradise, my wife and I were here to celebrate rather than literally walk in the footsteps of my ancestor.

Like another more famous banker-turned-

TRAVEL & TOURISM

The seascape at the beach in Tikehau island in Tahiti

artist Gauguin, William Alister Macdonald had abandoned his English wife and son to find a new life in the South Pacific.

The Maison James Norman Hall, home of the author, is now a museum – and I was kindly invited to return to Tahiti to give a presentation to celebrate the publication of my biography of William Alister Macdonald.

As I prepared to open my first box of books under his gaze from the portrait and watercolours hanging in museum library, it felt not just apt, but profoundly poignant to be in the very room in which he had spent time with his friends 100 years ago.

A visit to these islands is not complete without taking a day’s excursion by boat through the lagoons to swim with stingray, and snorkel in the coral gardens amongst the multitude of brightly coloured fish.

Stopping for lunch on a small desert island,

MARCH 2025

we were wide-eyed as the food was prepared for us with the tide lapping over our feet. Little fish nibbled at scraps of coconut and raw tuna – while, only a metre away, black-tip sharks circled.

I took a ‘Tahiti safari’ to follow the Papeno‘o River. I imagined my great-great uncle walking the same path with his fishing rod, employing the fly-fishing skills he acquired growing up among the lochs and river of Thurso in the north of Scotland.

The views of waterfalls and lush verdant pinnacles of rock were magnificent – a sharp contrast to the commercialisation and human habitation around Papeete.

My book could not have been written without having met my Tahitian relatives on a visit two years previously.

The painter’s two surviving granddaughters, Jacqueline and Andrine, took me to their

hearts, as did my extended family of cousins.

My return (historically unusual for European men with family there) was special, not just to introduce them to my Irish wife, but also to share with them the book of William Alister Macdonald’s extraordinary life and enchanting work.

Still highly regarded in Polynesia as a “Tahitian Turner”, he has been overlooked in Britain since 1936 when his critical acclaim peaked following an exhibition of paintings of London landmarks at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London.

Following a small family gathering on the very spot where he spent his last years – he died at the grand old age of 95 – my wife and I departed Tahiti garlanded in necklaces of shells, knowing we had overcome any barriers that had hindered family reunification in generations past. ■

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ANALYSIS

More needs to be done to strengthen cross-border connectivity Bolstering links is central to the aims of the Belfast Agreement, and the fact our society has not focused more on it is staggering, writes Paul Gosling

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erry and Donegal are like conjoined twins, bound together by economic, social and cultural links.

Policy makers seeking to improve the economy and quality of life in one must do so jointly with the other. Derry was, in effect, the capital city of the north-west region before partition and it remains so today, despite the border.

The economic statistics tell the story.

Workers in Derry have the north’s lowest disposable income. Donegal is the same in the Republic. Derry has the lowest employment

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rate in the north, Donegal the second lowest in the south.

Derry and Donegal each has the highest percentage of residents with no, or low, educational qualifications in their respective jurisdictions. It is a similar story as you go down the economic stats.

There are signs that politicians are recognising the need for this challenging duality in decision-making. The Irish Government is providing €44.5m (£37.3m) in capital funding for Ulster University’s new teaching and research facilities in Derry.

That was a commitment triggered by the New Decade New Approach agreement that was signed-off jointly by the British and Irish Governments and the Northern Ireland parties at the beginning of 2020, leading to a (temporary) resumption of Stormont.

And all governments and parties are committed to improving road connections in the west. Ireland’s Shared Island initiative has allocated €600m (£502m) towards the A5 north-west transport corridor, linking Derry and Strabane to Aughnacloy.

But this is allied to improvements to the N2 beyond Aughnacloy into Dublin, and also improvements to the spur roads from Strabane to Lifford and Letterkenny. It illustrates how what is good for Derry is also good for Donegal, and vice versa.

ANALYSIS

This reality can also be seen in the car parks of the big employers. Vertiv (formerly E&I) is a major employer in the small Donegal village of Burnfoot, close to the Derry border from where large numbers of workers travel every day. Going in the other direction are many employees of Seagate, which is just inside Northern Ireland.

Despite this, more could be done – and needs to be done – to provide a functioning cross-border labour market. This applies as much to Newry and Dundalk as it does to Derry and Donegal. For employers, the biggest grievance is the incompatibility of rules between the two jurisdictions in terms of tax, benefits and pensions.

There are also serious difficulties for employees crossing the border for work who

MARCH 2025

are not Irish or British nationals and who do not have post-Brexit UK-settled status.

If you look at how cross-border labour markets work elsewhere in the world – as I did last year for a study for the Holywell Trust charity – then you find examples of how others support cross-border linkage. One key element is strong transport connectivity – not just roads, but also bus and rail links.

Another strength can be cross-border skills planning, including developing the right undergraduate and vocational courses that employers in the region need. With the benefit of hindsight, it is surprising that skills development and the planning of higher and further education was not a topic for one of the cross-border agencies established by the Good Friday Agreement.

Skills development needs to be a priority along the border region, on both sides. A recent Irish Government report pointed to below-average productivity levels along the border within the Republic, which is at similar levels to that of Northern Ireland – substantially lagging average levels in the south.

In terms of the north west, there is far too little partnership between Invest NI and IDA Ireland, despite the reality of a cross-border travel-to-work area. Incompatible data across the two jurisdictions is one difficulty. But, historically at least, the agencies have also been constrained by the physical border being mirrored by a border psychology.

Internationally, cross-border co-operation often goes much further, including joint environmental management of adjoining areas and even shared physical infrastructure, such as electricity, telecoms, water supplies and sewerage.

These are all challenges that can be overcome with political will. There are already an assessed 10,541 daily journeys north to south for work and 7,777 south-to-north work journeys. Together with journeys for university, college and school study, there are at least 30,000 people commuting daily across the border, along its entire length.

And the size of the all-island economy has expanded rapidly following Brexit – sales of goods from the north to the south grew by 17.6% in 2023, and those in services by 25.9%. The sale of goods and services to Great Britain remains significantly larger and also rose in 2023, though at a lower rate.

Growth of the cross-border economy need not be seen as significant within the constitutional debate – Ulster Unionist politicians welcomed the Holywell Trust report.

Both CBI Northern Ireland and IBEC have stated that economic links both east-west and north-south need to be strengthened for the good of the Northern Irish economy. And in many places along the border, not just in Derry, connections are stronger cross-border than they are with Belfast.

Recognising and strengthening cross-border connectivity is central to the aims of the Good Friday Agreement. Supporting it is a sign of political maturity, putting more of the past behind us. What should be astonishing is that, 27 years after the Good Friday Agreement, our society has not focused a lot more on it. ■

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The latest figures show retail footfall rose during January

RETAIL

NI retail footfall picks up in January The latest figures show retail footfall rose at the start of the year, with Belfast outpacing Northern Ireland as a whole, writes Margaret Canning

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hop footfall in Northern Ireland climbed 3.5% in January compared to the same month the year before, a report has said.

According to the data from the NI Retail Consortium (NIRC) and Sensormatic, footfall in high street stores and shopping centres here had staged a strong recovery after a fall of 5.8% in December.

In shopping centres around the region, footfall had increased by 5.2% year on year in January, an improvement on the 5.7% decline of January.

And footfall in Belfast had surged by 4.8% year on year, turning around a decline of 7.2% in December. UK-wide, footfall had surged by 6.6%.

But bad weather towards the end of the month when Storm Éowyn struck kept shoppers at home.

And Belfast’s performance was actually seventh out of 11 UK cities, with Birmingham top of the leader board with a footfall rise of 14.3%.

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Neil Johnston, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, said: “Bargain hunters were hitting the shops across the country in January however whilst the numbers in Northern Ireland were strongly positive, they were understandably held back

by Storm Éowyn.

“The numbers of shoppers out and about was up by 3.5% across Northern Ireland and by 4.8% in Belfast. This was encouraging albeit somewhat behind the UK wide figure of 6.6%.

“On closer inspection it seems while the number of shoppers was up across the board in January the numbers in Northern Ireland and Scotland were notably lower than elsewhere.

“Storm Éowyn impacted hardest in Ireland, north and south, and in Scotland, so this clearly deterred shoppers. In addition to the actual storm on the Friday the impact on road and power infrastructure meant that many people had other things to focus on other than shopping.

“Overall, January was an encouraging month, and we hope that things will continue to improve.”

Andy Sumpter, retail consultant EMEA for Sensormatic Solutions, said: “After a dreary December, retailers will welcome January’s footfall jump.

“The uptick was boosted by a very strong week one, helped in part by New Year’s Day falling on a Wednesday, which may have prompted ambient store traffic as consumers bolted on additional days of leave, as well as retailers extending post-Christmas discounting well into January.

“Not even the significant disruption from Storm Éowyn was enough to dampen overall footfall performance. While welcome, after months of erratic and constrained footfall, the jury’s out as to whether January’s store performance signals the start of a sustained high street revival or if it will be a flash in the pan come February.”

But he said there was a challenge ahead for retailers on solving the conundrum of how to maintain footfall while balancing the effects of rising labour costs with the continued consumer appetite for discounts. ■

TAX & ACCOUNTING

Navigating the Trump tariffs

TAX & ACCOUNTING

After the US President’s introduction of a 25% tariff on steel imports to the US, Northern Ireland firms are uncertain about the future of their export markets, writes Pavel Barter

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usiness leaders are calling for the introduction of a new US economic envoy to Northern Ireland.

The lack of a US appointee to the region, following the departure of Joe Kennedy III, who served in the role under the Biden administration between 2022 and 2024, coincides with a period of uncertainty over President Trump’s introduction of tariffs. “[A new US economic envoy] is more important now than ever – we need somebody to argue our case,” said Darragh Cullen, managing director of Edge Innovate, a Dungannonbased manufacturer of quarrying, mining and recycling equipment that exports products to the US. Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI said the industry was “pleased with the attention and the access that Joe Kennedy provided for us. In the past there have been positive relationships with all our economic envoys. Anybody that can open doors and carry our case for us [in Washington] is to be welcomed. We would hope this White House would see the value of doing something similar again.”

There may be a glimmer of hope in President Trump’s appointment as special envoy to the UK: Mark Burnett, a British TV producer.

Burnett, who created the Apprentice series which launched Trump to fame in the media, is married to Roma Downey, an actress and producer who was born and raised in Derry.

Keir Starmer, the UK PM, recently met Burnett at Downing Street. “While Mark Burnett is the UK’s economic envoy from the United States, he will have an interest in Northern Ireland. So we hope that he would

46

pay some attention to here,” Stephen says.

“A Derry girl always has an influence on her husband.”

Concerns are felt across the province after Trump announced a 25% tax on steel and aluminium entering the US to be introduced from March 12, 2025. “This is a big deal: the beginning of making America rich again,” Trump said. “Our nation requires steel and aluminium to be made in America, not in foreign lands,” adding that the tariffs would be enforced “without exceptions or

exemptions”. Northern Ireland has no steel manufacturers but it has a cluster of service centres in the Mid Ulster region that work with steel and create intermediate goods. Tariffs could potentially make them uncompetitive in the US market.

“A lot of our internationally-owned, including US-owned, manufacturers are servicing markets in the UK, Europe and the Middle East,” Stephen Kelly said. “There are also lots of home grown engineering firms who sell directly to customers in the US and

TAX & ACCOUNTING

Business leaders are calling for the introduction of a new US economic envoy to NI in to assist in business relations

elsewhere and they are unsure what [steel tariffs] could mean for them.”

In mid-February, 2025, NI manufacturers held a crisis summit to explore what the tariffs might mean for their business. “There’s a balance between keeping under the radar and having somebody represent our opinions,” said one Mid Ulster exporter to the US who participated. “It’s probably better just to keep under the radar here for a while and see what happens. You don’t want to be attracting undue attention because at the minute - it’s

MARCH 2025

like avoiding eye contact with the teacher.”

Businesses are waiting to see how the EU and UK will respond to Trump’s tariffs. During his first term in 2018, Trump introduced a 25% tariff on steel which pushed prices up in EU markets. “The EU became fearful that Europe would be a dumping ground for steel that suddenly became available because it was uncompetitive to send to the United States,” explained Stephen. “In order to protect European steel production, including the UK, Europe applied a 25% tariff to foreign

imports.” In March 2022, the US under the Biden administration removed those tariffs.

Businesses across the board who import to the US are worried about further tariffs.

According to Northern Ireland Economic Trade Statistics from 2023, the US is NI’s top export partner within the Rest of the World (ROW) category, representing £1.9bn. Ulster Carpets, for example, which supply carpets for hotels and casinos across the US, announced “record turnover in the US contract market” in the financial year of 2022/2023. >

47

TAX & ACCOUNTING

US President Donald Trump pictured outside the West Wing

“The US is Northern Ireland’s second largest export market for manufactured goods,” said a spokesperson for Invest NI. “It remains unclear what the new US administration’s trade policy will be towards both the UK and EU and any resulting implications on trade for Northern Ireland. We continue to monitor the situation.”

During his first term, President Trump targeted consumer goods, including Irish whiskies and French cheese; the EU responded in kind. Trump has pledged to “definitely” place tariffs on imports from the EU due to a trade deficit with the region that was over $200 billion in 2024. “[The EU] takes almost nothing and we take everything from them,” he said, describing the deficit as an “atrocity”.

Despite Trump’s pledge to introduce tariffs “without exceptions or exemptions”, he seems willing to cut the UK slack due to its more balanced trade position with the US. “UK is out of line but… I think that one can be worked out,” the President said.

Jonathan Reynolds, the UK Business Secretary, said he had “constructive

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conversations with key people in the Trump administration” including Mark Burnett in recognition of the UK’s “different” relationship with the US. This stance may work to the advantage of NI business, said Darragh Cullen of Edge Innovate: “In the north, we’re probably a bit more secure because we’ll soon play the UK card in terms of tariffs. If he’s going to tariff Europe, we’ll go that way.”

Stephen Kelly concurs. “If the European Union is hit with tariffs, the UK has a competitive advantage. Northern Ireland is the best place in the UK to have a manufacturing business as a result of our post-Brexit arrangements.” However, tariffs pose a particular threat to the Republic of Ireland which exported $58bn of products (predominately pharmaceutical), representing 27% of the country’s total exports in 2023.

Tariffs on the EU could also have a knockback in NI, said Stephen Kelly. “Our goods freely circulate in the EU market because of our dual market access. Some of our components are treated as EU components.”

In the event of a global trade war, there will be no winners. “Nobody wins in war, whether it’s in trade or in physical battles over territory.

Everybody loses,” Stephen said. “Whether it’s a challenge to one nation like China, or a unilateral approach to all nations and all territories, those things have an impact on us.

More importantly, they have a big impact on US domestic consumers. They elected Trump on the basis that he was cutting prices but in reality this is going to make everything more expensive.”

Right now, businesses have no idea what is going to happen next. “The only thing that needs improved for us is the level of uncertainty,” Darragh Cullen said. A spokesperson for the Department for the Economy described the US as “an important market and the Department will continue to advocate on behalf of investment in, and trade with, the north”. As for the decision to appoint a new US economic envoy to Northern Ireland?

That, said the spokesperson, “is a matter for the US administration”. ■

NEWS

Danske Bank posts rising profits of £218.2m Vicky Davies

By John Mulgrew

D

anske Bank has posted pre-tax profits of £218.2m as its mortgage book and deposits continue to rise.

Meanwhile, the potential for US tariffs to impact firms here remains a “wait and see” situation amid uncertainty for some companies, according to the bank’s chiefs.

It comes as Danske Bank revealed its annual results – posting pre-tax profits of £218.2m for 2024, up 17%, with deposits and loans both up year-on-year. Deposits rose from £10.7bn to £11.4bn.

The bank saw mortgage approvals rising by more than a third, with more than 60% of those opting for two-year fixed rates. That demand for shorter-term fixed rate mortgages is expected to increase amid further predicted interest cuts on the horizon.

It also welcomed 16,000 new current account customers, along with 1,500 new small businesses – up two-thirds, year-on-year.

Turning to the marketplace and the challenges ahead, on the issue of potential trade tariffs with the US – President Donald Trump has already imposed tariffs on China –

MARCH 2025

Danske Bank chief executive Vicky Davies said: “The concern is the impact on our customer base – those who are trading to a large degree, directly with the US, or being part of a parent company. It’s very much a watch and see.

“It’s part of customer conversations with our relationship managers, but we don’t have a ground swell of businesses [bringing concerns]… it’s too early to judge.”

Stephen Matchett, deputy chief executive and chief financial officer, said “tariff is the word of the moment”.

“That’s creating a huge amount of uncertainty out there,” he said. “The negative of that is stalling investment and potentially stalling growth.”

On its own results, Ms Davies said it was a strong year for Danske Bank – with increased income driven by lending and deposits in a high interest rate environment And on the housing market, Richard Caldwell, managing director, Great Britain and corporate strategy, he said it remained strong, with rising prices and strong demand “underpinned by low unemployment”.

“We had record level of mortgage approvals in 2024 – £730m,” Mr Caldwell said. “That’s

really strong – we are up 35% year-on-year.

“We are seeing more customers moving to two-year fixed… 63% took a two-year.

“We expect that to continue in an environment where rates are going to fall.”

He said the average age of those taking out their first mortgage had gotten “a little bit older”.

The bank continued to invest, including in its digital infrastructure, according to Mr Matchett.

Ms Davies says that with some business concerns over the future economic landscape, including the impact of the Autumn Budget, that despite higher deposits among firms they may not “move things to the front burner”.

“It all comes down to confidence, for businesses, homeowners, to a degree, having the confidence to put on the front burner things they may have put on the back burner.

“I don’t think the environment at the moment means that we will see a significant shift in that… but that untapped potential is definitely there.

Looking ahead, Ms Davies said the latest results for the bank “leaves us entering 2025 in a very strong financial position”. ■

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US President Donald Trump has already announced tariffs on a number of nations

TAX & ACCOUNTING

‘Tariffs are a very blunt instrument’: NI firms feel effect of US policies President Donald Trump’s latest round of levies could put Northern Irish fabrication in a difficult position.

Producers and leaders from here spoke to James McNaney about how shocks to the interconnected global trade will reverberate in NI 50

T

he US President has his fixations, including deals, walls, people being unfair to him, and steel.

Donald Trump associates himself with steel, perhaps because of his background in the construction business.

He famously declared his border wall at the

TAX & ACCOUNTING

frontier between the US and Mexico would be built of steel slats that would be “totally effective while at the same time beautiful”.

His interest in steel has taken on renewed global significance as he announced on Sunday that he would introduce a 25% tariff on all steel imported into the United States.

Trump’s concerns about steel are based on the US’ own declining domestic production.

The US was the fourth largest steelproducing nation in the world, with an output of 81.4 million tonnes in 2023, less than 10% the size of China, the world’s biggest producer.

And the US has a trade imbalance with the metal. World Steel ranks the US as the world’s second-largest importer of steel, but only the 17th-largest exporter.

The UK industry is small compared to major producers, ranked only 26th in the world in 2023.

Northern Ireland is a smaller slice of that.

A House of Commons report in October said Northern Ireland had just 440 out of the 34,000 jobs in the industry UK-wide in 2022.

Trump’s tariffs will have an impact here, however, due to the interconnected nature of the global steel trade.

A spokesman for Walter Watson Ltd, a steel fabrication company in Castlewellan, Co Down, said it’s talking to suppliers.

“We are at present trying to gather as much information as possible. It’s a very fluid situation.

“We had communication with one of the largest steel mills in the world this morning, ArcelorMittal, to say that they are reviewing the situation and will advise all of their customers in due course of any action necessary. It’s still very much up in the air.

“We would anticipate that there will be a fall-out from this and whatever needs to be recovered will be passed around the globe.

Steel is a globally traded commodity and there’s only a certain amount of mills in the industry that would be large enough to supply globally.

“Because of the status of the US, in an indirect way, it does eventually filter down to the likes of us.”

He deals with ArcelorMittal in France, but the Luxembourg-based company has mills all over the world, including Great Britain.

The spokesman said he anticipated more conversations with other international suppliers

MARCH 2025

in the next couple of days.

Stephen Kelly, the chief executive of Manufacturing NI, said tariffs introduced during Trump’s first term had negatively impacted NI. “The EU responded to that by introducing its own 25% tariff for rest-of-world steel coming into Europe, mostly to protect Europe from being a dumping ground for steel produced elsewhere in the world.

“If it became more expensive or more difficult to send stuff to the US because of their tariffs, the worry was that the EU would be the next location for that steel that would ordinarily have gone to America.

“To protect its own domestic production throughout Europe, including at that point in the UK, Europe introduced that tariff. It meant that all steel imports into NI were 25% more expensive. That adds cost to everything.

“When you think about how steel is a critical component for not just our engineering sector, our energy industry, construction, there are a whole raft of areas that this has an impact on.”

The global steel industry has, according to the House of Commons report, had an issue with excess capacity for decades, where there is more steel produced than there is demand to use it.

Mr Kelly is concerned that Trump’s tariffs could exacerbate this problem for the UK and NI, harming domestic production.

“The UK produces lots of steel, and some of that does travel to the United States.

“It’s the high-value stuff because the cost of production is so much higher. The UK and the EU compete very favourably on the high-value stuff.

“The EU will react to protect its own market in order to avoid stuff just being dumped below cost price into Europe, damaging its own production.

“The UK then is exposed. If the steel can’t travel from India or China or Turkey to the EU or US because it’s too expensive, then the natural next home for that is the United Kingdom.

“Markets will go, ‘we’ve produced all this stuff, we need to find a market for it,’ so they sell it to the UK for close to free, wrecking the UK’s steel industry, which has a bad impact on us as well.

“We don’t get a lot of steel from the US but

it’s about steel coming from other parts of the world that suddenly sees its market in the US closed off, so they need to find somewhere else to sell it.

“Then it gets into a really sticky place where other countries will have to introduce their own tariff as well.

“The one thing that is clear is that Trump is keen to protect his domestic production as it is.

“His method for doing that is making things coming from elsewhere in the world more expensive, to give the American producers a competitive advantage.

“The problem with that is that American production doesn’t do the things that the US needs, so it still will need to import, which makes everything more expensive.

“Tariffs are a very blunt instrument that tend to have a negative response from the other side as well.

“We just end up in disputes which are unnecessary and unhelpful and add costs and burden to businesses and eventually to consumers.”

Tariffs go against the received wisdom of much economic policy of the past six decades.

Institutions committed to free trade have responded negatively to the US’ turn towards protectionism.

Chris Hayward, the policy chairman of the City of London Corporation, was recently in Northern Ireland to promote the financial industry here, and made his views on tariffs quite clear when speaking to the Belfast Telegraph: “I would rather they didn’t happen.

“They’re very bad for trade, and open trade is vital for the United Kingdom.

“If I take just UK/US trade, that is pivotal.

It’s worth over £300bn to the economy.

“In the UK’s case, I cannot see how tariffs can be really very applicable anyway, because we are, we have a surplus in that respect.

“We don’t actually export considerable amounts of things, and we are very much a services-based economy.

“They would reduce our ability to trade with the United States and that has to be bad.

“We have a smallish domestic economy, so we have to have global trading. We have to compete across the whole world, and tariffs would put a restriction on that for us.

“It would be bad for NI. It would be bad for the United Kingdom.” ■

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RETAIL & WHOLESALE

Downturn in business activity in January ‘steepest in two years’

T

he construction and retail sectors drove an overall decline in business activity in Northern Ireland last month, a report has said.

But the Ulster Bank Regional Growth Tracker said manufacturing and services were driving economic growth and job creation.

And employment growth, while slight, had continued during January, with increasing in staffing levels now entering its third year.

However, the headline business activity index was still below the 50 ‘no change’ mark, and had dropped to 45 from 47.7 in December – the steepest decline in two years.

Sebastian Burnside, chief economist at Ulster Bank parent company NatWest, said: “NIs labour market is the most resilient of any part of the UK at the start of 2025.

“That’s building on the momentum of last year, when job growth was twice the pace of the next fastest region. But employers are starting the year in a more cautious setting.

“Private sector firms reported rapidly rising cost pressures and prices.

52

“Combined with rising wage costs and upcoming increases to national insurance contributions, this has cooled demand and the flow of new work.

“Many will be hoping that the Bank of England’s interest rate [recently] means that policy is now less restrictive, with further loosening expected in the year ahead.”

The Bank of England slashed the base rate of interest to 4.5%. However, businesses are bracing themselves for the impact of a rise in employer national insurance contributions from April, when the rate will go up from 13.8% to 15%.

Ulster Bank said new orders at Northern Ireland companies decreased for the third consecutive month in January.

Confidence in the year-ahead outlook for business activity dropped sharply in January and was the lowest in just over two years. Plans to launch new products and hopes that new orders and market share will grow supported optimism in the outlook.

However, that was curtailed by concerns

around wider economic conditions, a lack of confidence among customers and the forthcoming rise in employer national insurance contributions.

Although staffing levels increased for the 25th consecutive month during January, the rate of job creation was only marginal and the weakest in the current growth sequence.

Rising wage pressures were the main factor behind an increase in input prices in January, according to respondents. The rate of input cost inflation accelerated and was the fastest since March 2023. The latest increase was also sharper than the series average.

Rising staff costs were often passed through to customers, resulting in a further increase in prices charged by NI companies. Selling prices rose markedly, and at a slightly faster pace than in December.

Many UK company bosses have been speaking out against the increase in national insurance.

Writing in the Sunday Times, M&S chief executive Stuart Machin said: “Retail is being raided like a piggy bank and it’s unacceptable.” ■

Developing next generation 3D medical printing

Axial3D was a spin-out success story from Queen’s University

INTERVIEW

Axial3D boss Roger Johnston tells Margaret Canning how helping a children’s cancer charity aligns with his firm’s ground-breaking work

“I

’ve had a proper mid-life crisis over the last few years and the choice was getting fat, old and useless, or doing something about it, and for whatever reason, I chose the latter.”

Roger Johnston, chief executive of medical device 3D printing company Axial3D, is discussing his passion for charity hikes, most prominently raising money for Cancer Fund for Children. He’s had a productive corporate career, starting out at consultancy firm Accenture and working at a number of companies before joining Axial3D in Belfast as chief executive in 2019.

However, the corporate ladder doesn’t necessarily mean a healthy or fulfilling lifestyle, he found. “Up until my mid to late 20s, I was

54

into sport. But then I got caught up in work and thought getting older and fatter and more useless was a good plan, if I focused on my work.

“But then I got to my early 50s and thought, this really isn’t a good plan. I found that I can’t run any more but I can walk up hills, so we’ve been going to amazing places around the world to do Kilimanjaro and Mount Everest Base Camp and places like that, hiking the Andes and North Africa.

“It’s amazing because of the people you meet, and it grounds you. If you think you’re important at work and this next video call is important, it’s not.”

In June, Roger will head a team of 20 business leaders from Ireland, the UK and US

on the 26 Mountains 2 Mayo challenge in aid of Cancer Fund for Children. They’re aiming to raise nearly £1m for children, young people and families impacted by cancer by climbing to the highest point in each county, starting in Donegal before moving to Ulster, Connacht, Leinster and then Munster, before a final leg in Connacht.

He has walked on a similar fundraising effort led by former Ireland rugby captain Rory Best for the charity. “It was remarkable and probably gave me time to walk with families who had been affected.”

It was a learning experience. “At every school we passed the kids came out and they’d been fundraising, too. I could have cried the whole way round, it was so emotional. Rory

INTERVIEW

Roger Johnston

had done two of these and couldn’t again for work reasons so I said ‘let me pick up the baton here’.

And he says there’s a “huge link” with what Axial3D does – manufacturing 3D organ and body-part models based on scans through 3D printing so that surgeons can prepare fully for surgery using something that’s as close to the real thing as possible.

The company has a printing lab at a former restaurant premises on Ormeau Avenue, and offices in nearby Alexander House. Its products are now used by over 400 hospitals around the world in more than 40 countries. Major customers include medical devices giants like Stryker, Medtronic and Boston Scientific.

Rodger says: “These types of companies are all moving treatments away from just being solely one size fits all. If you need a new knee replacement, instead of getting size 10, 11 or

MARCH 2025

12, you could get a patient-specific knee so that it’s going to fit better.

“We enable medical device companies to do this at scale without increasing prices form their standard level. That’s our crusade for the next few years.

“I’m very fortunate at my stage in my career to have a mission-based business like Axial3D. The amazing thing is that every time we take an MRI or CT scan and turn it into something, that is a real person who’s sick, and we can affect fundamentally the outcome of their lives.”

Its work is particularly important in operations for cancer treatment where its modelling can bring “crystal-clear clarity” of the boundary of a tumour. “If you’re surgically removing a tumour, they will typically take a lot of healthy anatomy because you can’t see the boundary. But we can give you sub-millimetre

accurate view of where a tumour starts and ends so you can be much more discriminatory about the damage you’re inflicting on someone’s body.

“There’s a huge carry over with Cancer Fund for Children as many of the children it supports, their treatments could be supported ironically by an Axial 3D care service. It all makes me emotional.

“You know as you get older, you just cry for no reason, lots of times. Anyway, it’s a huge carry-over.”

Roger, who’s from Finaghy in south Belfast, joined consultancy Accenture in 1986 after studying business development and accounting at Queen’s. He was trained in software programming, development and design, before arriving on site with clients, and later sales and marketing and business development.

His training first brought him to Lytham >

55

INTERVIEW

St Anne’s in Blackpool. “We were actually working in an old Second World War breeze block field hospital and automating benefits systems at time of Margaret Thatcher.

“At that time, she was challenging the unions whether print unions in Wapping or civil service who didn’t want to introduce computers and as they saw it replacing staff.”

He continued to build his career across a number of companies, including a year at IT firm Kainos plc, the only NI firm listed on the FTSE 250.

“Back when I started we had so few businesses exporting, but now we have an incredible ecosystem of early stage and growth stage companies and companies like Kainos trading all round the world.”

His enthusiasm for exporting saw him appointed as an export champion by the UK’s Department of Business and Trade – though he jokes that many motorists were alarmed at the large billboards featuring a cut-out of Roger brandishing a 3D-printed organ. “I love encouraging or mentoring companies just to

56

have the confidence to believe that actually we’re at least as good as our equivalents in the Silicon Valley or wherever.”

The company recently announced an £18.2m funding boost from investors including Clarendon and TechStart – both of which had supported the firm before – and new investor 57 Stars. “They’ve backed a number of NI companies and most excitingly have a fund actually dedicated to NI….

“Our mission is to make sure any child or adult who needs precise imaging around the world can have access to 3D, whether in first world or third world, and we can’t do that without financial fuel and partners and customers who give us that reach. This backing gives us a really incredible opportunity to do that.” He envisages adding another 15 staff to its headcount of 60 this year. “The great bit is because of our automation and our AI and machine-learning, we don’t need to hire hundreds of new people to build what we’re going.

“This is as much about us being able to

accelerate things like our patents, our R&D, which is the lifeblood for us, and getting into international markets. 80% of our market is the US.” Roger now lives just outside Annahilt and spends two weeks every month in the US. He talks to us on the phone from Tampa, Florida after flying there from Nashville.

Around 90% of its product are exported, mainly to the US, and Rodger admits the new tariff regime being rolled out by President Donald Trump may have an impact once the position for UK and EU firms becomes clearer.

“It’s something we’re going to have to react to when we have that clarity. We’re very aware it’s a potential issue and the way we are structured, we are a UK company but we have an Irish subsidiary for trading in Europe and a US subsidiary for trading in the US. “And because we’re a software business we hope that within those combinations, we’ll be able to continue to invest in the US, we’re not a net drain on the US so we hope to find a way through.” ■

MEDIA & PUBLISHING

Publisher of Belfast Telegraph sues X over scam adverts that link to fake news stories Mediahuis Ireland says its trademarks have been used to promote cryptocurrency

I

reland’s largest media group has sued Elon Musk’s X over the proliferation of scam advertisements designed to look like genuine news articles on the social media platform.

Mediahuis Ireland, which publishes many

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titles including the Belfast Telegraph and Ulster Business, issued proceedings alleging its trademarks and copyrights were infringed and trust in its publications risks being undermined by fake articles posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The complaint relates to advertisements containing links to fictitious articles bearing the Irish Independent’s logo and the byline of one of its journalists.

The articles include a piece claiming Tánaiste Simon Harris is being sued by Bank of Ireland for comments made during a live broadcast.

Another fake article makes similar false claims in relation to Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman.

Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers has also featured in similar scam advertisements.

In High Court proceedings initiated against Twitter International Unlimited Company (TIUC), the publisher is seeking orders to compel X to remove or disable access to all advertisements that infringe on its copyright and link to false Irish Independent news articles.

While X recently suspended nine user accounts for violation of its financial scam

MEDIA & PUBLISHING

Some of the fake articles that appeared on social media platform X, bearing the logo of the ‘Irish Independent’ and even sometimes journalists’ bylines

policy following complaints from Mediahuis Ireland, the media group claims the social media platform has been unable or unwilling to take proper or sufficient action to address the issue.

It says the matter is compounded by the promotion of the posts on the platform, with the fake advertisements being shared by “verified” users and published as bona fide advertisements.

The media group has complained the advertisements clearly seek to exploit the reputation of the Irish Independent, and third parties referred to in them, to fraudulently mislead the public into investing in a cryptocurrency scheme.

In a statement, Mediahuis Ireland said it had been forced to initiate the proceedings due to what it claimed was X’s repeated refusal to take proper measures to prevent the publication and promotion of fake advertisements by users of its platform.

“These ads are deliberately targeting members of the public for financial fraud. In doing so they are using the reputation and brand recognition of the Irish Independent,

MARCH 2025

often including well-known public figures, to gain attention,” the statement said.

“These ads are harmful to the public and they risk damaging the trust and integrity of the Irish Independent that has been hard won through more than 100 years of commitment and diligence from its journalists and employees.”

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is a notice party in the case, due to the consumer protection issues involved.

TIUC, via its lawyers, has rejected the allegation that it is unable or unwilling to tackle fraudulent advertisements. It claims to have acted diligently and expeditiously in response to reports about such content.

Among orders sought by Mediahuis Ireland is one requiring TIUC to implement effective technical measures, including image banking, keyword filtering and algorithmic amendments, to detect and prevent publication of ads that infringe on copyright, link to fake articles and misappropriate the goodwill enjoyed by the brand.

The publisher wants proposed advertisements or promoted posts to be

subject to pre-publication review conducted by human reviewers trained to identify unlawful content if red flags are raised by the technical measures sought.

The publisher is also seeking an order requiring TIUC to implement appropriate and effective measures to verify the identities and payment method of individuals who place advertisements or promoted posts through the X Ads service.

A further order is sought requiring TIUC to provide Mediahuis Ireland with information identifying the people who placed the scam advertisements.

A declaration is being sought that TIUC has, in its operation or control of X, infringed on Mediahuis Ireland’s EU trademarks.

A further declaration is sought that TIUC had knowledge of illegal activity or content on X and failed, refused or neglected to act expeditiously to remove or disable access to this content.

Mediahuis Ireland is the largest publisher on the island of Ireland, with titles including the Belfast Telegraph, Sunday Life, Sunday World and Irish Independent. ■

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ANALYSIS

Major changes required to tackle economic inactivity and lift the labour market Paul Mac Flynn, economist and co-director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute (Neri), says we need to look at why our base level of economic inactivity is so high here

I

n a column at the end of last year I wrote about the fact that recent revisions to the Northern Ireland labour market data show that our employment situation was actually a good bit better than we first thought.

Specifically, there were more people in our labour market, and more of those people had employment. This is good news for NI because labour force participation is one of the biggest weaknesses in our economy.

There are many reasons people choose to remain outside of the labour market and many of them are perfectly normal and are not problems that need to be fixed. Students and people who are caring for family are outside the labour market and there is no obvious reason to want to have fewer people in either of those categories.

At present, the main reason for people being outside the labour force, or economically inactive, is due to long-term illness. While the overall numbers of economically inactive may have declined recently, the proportion of people outside of the labour market due to ill health has steadily increased in recent years.

But it may just be possible that the remedy for this situation may be right in front of us. Often when we look at the problem of

60

economic inactivity, we focus on the specific reasons why the rate is so much higher here.

Many aspects of a post-conflict society can contribute to higher levels of economic inactivity and recent survey data released by the NI Executive on childhood traumas and mental health shows this.

Tackling this requires a proper public health approach to mental illness and it is one of the most important economic policies NI could enact.

However, beyond the factors that are unique to NI, we need to look at why our base level of economic inactivity is also so high here. Even if we were to close the gap in inactivity with the rest of the UK, we would still have among the highest rates in Europe among developed economies.

This is because the UK rate has increased significantly over the years since the pandemic.

This stands in stark contrast with the experience in the Republic of Ireland where rates of inactivity are now lower than they were before the pandemic.

More positively, the fact that the UK rate of inactivity has risen so much in recent years has prompted much more interest in the reasons why people remain outside the labour market. In addition to tackling the issues that

Childcare should be improved to tackle economic inactivity

are individual to NI, we should also focus on the more commonplace barriers to people rejoining the labour market.

Policies to remove barriers can range from providing affordable childcare to making sure that the benefits system doesn’t penalise those wishing to return to work. The benefits system is something that is more likely to be effective at national level and there is limited scope for the Executive here to make real change.

Childcare subsidies in the Republic have been credited with much of the improvement in activity rates there and this should lend even greater impetus to the Executive in developing its childcare strategy, but it will ultimately cost money.

Another factor that has come to the fore

ANALYSIS

in the debate at UK level is the link between higher rates of inactivity and the quality of jobs that are available. Simply put, many people who have left the labour force did so because of work which is of such poor quality that it affected their health and well-being.

Poor quality work is not just about pay, it covers many other aspects and specifically the nature of the work itself. Poor quality jobs can be those which are insecure or where the hours can be uncertain and even excessive.

They can be jobs where the pace of work is highly intense and controlled and where people feel they have almost no control over their working lives. Add to that poor management, lack of support and no chance of recognition or progression.

MARCH 2025

A recent report by the OECD on the UK’s labour market made a direct connection between the issue of economic inactivity and job quality. The report said that “by improving job quality for all ages, a more dynamic and inclusive labour market can be created, maximising workforce potential and promoting economic growth”.

A study from Leeds University went further stating that “bad work – work that does not pay enough and is unrewarding in other ways – can lead to economic inactivity” .

A report from the Work Foundation laments the failure of government policy to tackle the root causes of economic inactivity which it lists as “the underlying quality, security and flexibility of work, or the provision of health-

related support on offer”.

It is clear that improving job quality is key to tackling one of NI’s greatest economic weaknesses and unlocking our potential. This is also an area where we do have the power to effect change and where there is no need for additional funding.

To this end, the NI Executive has now brought forward the Good Jobs and Employment Bill which seeks to mark a step change in the quality of employment that is available in Northern Ireland.

Economic inactivity is, and has been, one of the most persistent and enduring of NI’s economic problems and it will not be solved through half measures or wishful thinking. It requires a game change. ■

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Word Wise FROM THE

The column with an ear for experience...

How did you start out in your business?

I found it very difficult to get into the legal industry as I didn’t have the traditional mix of family history in the law or an “old school tie” connection. Essentially it involved writing to a number of law firms in Belfast, and I was fortunate enough to get an interview with O’Reilly Stewart. Having served as an apprentice, my career grew from there and I’m still with the business, 29 years later.

What have you found the most challenging during your years of business, so far?

I don’t think anyone who was in business in 2020 will say anything other than Covid. The uncertainty in the early weeks of the pandemic was very unsettling and difficult to handle on both personal and professional levels.

Thankfully, we are well on the other side of it now and our practice had great systems in place that were resilient enough to see us successfully navigate that very fluid time.

How would you describe your management style?

I’ve only been managing director for less than a year, so I suppose I would say ‘a work in progress’. When facing difficult issues, I remain calm and put myself in the position I would take when advising a client rather than taking things on a personal level. In general terms I will always try to seek agreement and consensus rather than issuing orders.

What would you change if you could go back and do it all again?

I have never found it healthy or productive

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Stuart Gilmore O’Reilly Stewart to have regrets, except perhaps as part of a learning experience. I believe that most of us find ourselves where we have ended up as the result of an accumulation of decisions that were the best choice for us at the time we made them.

Have you done it all on your own?

Absolutely not. I had tremendous support from my parents, John and Pamela, throughout my education and early career and they made great sacrifices to help me out. I am lucky to have a very understanding wife, Bronwen, who generally doesn’t complain that much about the long hours and constant checking of emails. On a professional level I am very grateful to have been part of a great firm that looks after its staff and does things the right way. I learned a lot from the two founders

of our practice, Garrett O’Reilly and Brian Stewart. Our previous managing director, Joe Moore, was also a great mentor and taught me most of what I know about leading a busy firm of solicitors.

How would you like your business to be remembered?

As a solicitors’ practice that does things right. A firm that looks after its people, acts professionally and proactively and gives good advice to its clients but never loses the personal touch.

What piece of advice would you give to a 20-year-old you?

Keep at it. If you work hard, persevere, and find yourself a niche that you stand out in, you’ll go (reasonably) far. ■

IT & TECHNOLOGY

The tech firm using AI to protect workplaces

IT & TECHNOLOGY

P

rotex AI, a three-year-old Dublin start-up, has just completed a Series B funding round of $36m (€34.8m).

It brings to $54m the amount raised by the company, which employs 60 people and was co-founded by Dubliner Dan Hobbs and Limerick-born Ciaran O’Mara.

The round was led by the UK investment firm Hedosophia with participation from Salesforce Ventures and existing investors such as the Irish investment house Elkstone.

Protex’s other investors include Notion Capital and Flexport.

Protex AI makes a software platform that plugs into CCTV cameras and other sensors to offer on-site safety tips and accidentprevention analysis for factories and other workplaces. It counts industrial giants including DHL among its customers.

The start-up will use the extra money to expand, particularly in the US, according to chief Dan Hobbs.

It’s not the first foray into successful company-building for Hobbs, who sold a third level software start-up, BetterExaminations, to the tech firm Terminal Four in 2019.

Hobbs spoke to the Irish Independent about how Protex AI is going, how artificial intelligence is now judged, and his own startup journey so far.

Adrian Weckler [AW]: Where did the company idea come from?

Dan Hobbs [DH]: One of [co-founder] Ciaran’s family members was working on a site and there was a fatality. They thought it was a freak accident, but when they went back through the CCTV, they saw some behaviour patterns, whether it was speeding forklifts or ergonomic issues, leading to it. They didn’t know about this stuff because they didn’t have visibility.

AW: So Protex AI increases awareness of future accidents?

DH: Sort of. Take near misses with forklifts, which can weigh almost two tonnes. When someone gets hit with one, people think they’re freak accidents. But there are times when people are almost getting hit by forklifts again and again, a series of constant little near misses where nobody notices. If they’re not identified and fixed, they’re going to lead to something that could be a fatality.

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Dan Hobbs, chief executive of workplace safety firm Protex AI, says the company’s accident-prevention analysis saves lives. He speaks to Adrian Weckler Think of it like trying to spot a car crash before it occurs. It’s really hard. But with our system, clients pick these movements up, and are able to do something as simple as to move something 10 feet to the left so that they’re not in a situation where someone could almost die.

AW: What sort of impact is it having?

DH: On average, clients tell us that they see a 64% reduction in risk, which we didn’t think we’d get starting off. The biggest behaviour change isn’t necessarily the workers on site or anything like that. It’s actually how people are looking at the data. Usually, when an injury happens, it’s only then that something is done about it, because that’s when all the data points are looked at. What we’re doing is flipping that on its head and saying, ‘if we can look at the leading indicators, these small data points that lead to it, maybe we can stop things happening before they actually occur’.

AW: You’ve raised quote a lot of money in a relatively short time. Was that hard?

DH: We actually found it quite straightforward, to be honest. It was almost all inbound. We didn’t have to go outbound at all. We weren’t planning to raise right now, but we had a lot of VCs getting in touch with us. I think no matter the environment or the climate of the investment scenes, good companies always raise. I definitely think we’re in that bracket. We were top tier when it came to being performance-tracked against other portfolio companies.

AW: Is including the term ‘AI’ a supercharging effect when raising money? Or might it even be table stakes in 2025?

DH: We’re only three and a half years old, but we’ve now raised $54m. Which is a bit crazy and some of the reason for that is because of the AI, where there’s this deep curve or adoption that’s happening where people are taking to it a lot faster – and you

Protex AI chief executive Dan Hobbs

don’t have to oversell or over-engineer what you’re talking about. I think the fact that that’s happening is helping hugely with regards to our roll-outs and people signing long-term contracts with us.

But I also think that it’s moving away from just investing in any Gen AI company and more into applicable AI. We’re seeing a lot more people be more targeted about where they’re investing.

AW: You’re focusing squarely on the US market now. With all that’s going on, how

IT & TECHNOLOGY

feasible is it to do that based in Ireland?

DH: We want to build one of the biggest companies in Ireland and be headquartered here. We have operations in the US, and we’re building out in the US a lot, but there is space for that. Like, you have the Intercoms of the world and you see Tines doing really well too.

We’ve got an incredibly smart workforce in Ireland in this space as well. So we’re really trying to utilise that and build one of the behemoths.

AW: You and Ciaran O’Mara have known

MARCH 2025

each other since the BT Young Scientist event in 2010, when you were competing as 15-yearolds.

DH: The cool thing is that we still go every single year. The idea [for Protex AI] actually came when we were at the Young Scientists.

That event is so brilliant. It’s a first taste of business and innovation for students. Even when we’re interviewing people, we can tell if they’ve done the Young Scientists or not.

Those who have that kind of savvy that comes with being able to talk about a project. And

just from a confidence perspective, they’re all smart kids, so we love that. We go every single year, and we owe a lot to the Young Scientists for introducing ourselves to each other.

AW: And what was participation in (start-up accelerator) Y-Combinator like?

DH: It was great, although because it was during the pandemic, it was done from west of Ireland, rather than the west of the US. So we didn’t get the glamour of San Francisco, it was more the glamour of Castletroy [Ciaran’s home town]. ■

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IT & TECHNOLOGY

US fintech firm creates 20 new Belfast jobs A

n American fintech firm is investing over £2m here with the creation of 20 new jobs paying around £55,000 on average.

SpiderRock Technology Solutions is adding an engineering development team to its Belfast offices, located in Donegall Square East.

The company works with hedge funds, banks and other trading firms around the world, supplying them with “highperformance, cloud-based trading systems and low-latency market data solutions”.

The jobs will be hybrid, meaning that they are open to applicants based across Northern Ireland.

Economic development agency Invest NI and the Department for the Economy were involved in securing the investment, including during former Economy Minister Conor Murphy’s trip to America in 2024.

Mr Murphy said: “This investment by such a prestigious company is testament to the international stature of the North’s thriving fintech sector.”

“Invest NI and I met SpiderRock’s leadership team in Chicago last year to discuss the benefits of investing in the north.

“I’m delighted the company has now decided to create 20 new positions offering average salaries of £55,000, almost double the private sector median.

“The hybrid nature of the roles mean they

Our Northern Ireland team will play a critical role in supporting our trading platform, extending operational coverage during non-US hours 66

Now former Economy Minister Conor Murphy (right) with SpiderRock’s George Papa and Annabelle Baldwin, Andrea Haughian, Invest NI, and Julianne Cox, Invest NI

will be accessible to people right across the region.”

George Papa, chief executive of SpiderRock, said: “We have been incredibly impressed with the talent and expertise available in Northern Ireland, as well as the strong partnerships with universities and support from Invest NI. “Our Northern Ireland team will play a critical role in supporting our trading platform, extending operational coverage during nonUS hours, and enabling our expansion into European markets.

“Recruitment efforts are progressing rapidly, and we’re thrilled to have already filled almost half of the planned roles.

“This investment marks a significant milestone for SpiderRock as we grow our presence in Europe, build our brand, and deliver innovative solutions to new markets.”

Andrea Haughian, Invest NI’s head of Americas, said: “Securing this investment for

Northern Ireland is a testament to the hard work of our local investment manager and the collaborative efforts of our in-market team in the US. “SpiderRock’s decision to establish operations in Northern Ireland highlights the region’s growing reputation as a fintech hub, offering a skilled workforce and a competitive business environment.

“The new team will play a pivotal role in advancing SpiderRock’s global strategy and we look forward to supporting SpiderRock as it grows its operations here.”

The announcement is likely to be one of the last made by Mr Murphy in his current role, as he seeks election to Seanad Éireann.

He has been nominated for the industrial and commercial panel, and will go before the electorate of current and TDs, current members of the Seanad and members of city and county councils. ■

IT & TECHNOLOGY

School phone ban trial pushing ahead despite claim it ‘does not improve grades or behaviour’

By John Mulgrew

A

Government scheme to prevent mobile phones being used in schools is being pushed forward, while a peer-reviewed study shows banning devices is not linked to pupils performing better.

Education Minister Paul Givan announced a plan to spend £250,000 on lockable phone pouches for a trial in 10 schools at the start of last September.

Alliance MLA Michelle Guy said while the issue of phone and social media use remains a concern, “I don’t think spending over £200,000 of desperately needed capital money on phone pouches is the right way to approach this”.

Now, a fresh tender on behalf of the Education Authority is seeking to secure the devices, which would be on a trial basis across the 10 schools. The tender is valued at £230,000.

But the progress comes as new research shows restricting smartphone use did not appear to have a negative impact on student health, wellbeing and focus in lessons.

It claims that classroom behaviour, exercise and sleep, along with the time spent on their phones, appeared no different for schools with phone bans, compared to those without.

The University of Birmingham’s findings, which were peer-reviewed and published by The Lancet’s Regional Health Europe journal, looked at 1,227 students across 30 schools.

“There is no evidence that restrictive school policies are associated with overall phone and social media use or better mental wellbeing in adolescents,” it said.

“The findings do not provide evidence to support the use of school policies that prohibit phone use during the school day in their current form, and indicate that these policies require further development,” the research said.

MARCH 2025

Education Minister Paul Givan is trialling a new scheme to ban phones at 10 schools here

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the “headlines” from the study are “misleading” as they “focus on whether school smartphone bans are effective, however the report concludes that the issue is much bigger than simply removing smartphones from schools”.

It said the restriction of mobile phone use, while not enough on its own, as a wider element “can play an important role in delivering positive impacts for pupils and their learning”.

“Having considered the evidence, and listened to the concerns of parents and teachers about the use of mobile phones in schools, the Education Minister announced a phone-free pilot for Northern Ireland, which will prevent pupils from using their phones during the school day. Ten schools from across Northern Ireland will be participating in the pilot which will begin in September 2025.”

It said the new survey into the restriction of phone use in schools “did find a link between more time spent on phones and social media and worse outcomes, with worse mental wellbeing and mental health outcomes, less physical activity and poorer sleep, lower educational attainment and a greater level of disruptive classroom behaviour”.

It said it has “considered a growing number of research and reports that highlight how the use of smartphones in schools is an area of concern”.

Last September, Mr Givan said: “Growing evidence shows that phones distract children from learning and that limiting access to mobile phones during the school day can have a positive impact on academic engagement and achievement.

“Many countries across the world are increasingly taking steps to stop phone use at school.” ■

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FOOD & DRINK

Kundan curry at Jumon East

Jumon East review:

Some solid cooking at Asian fusion hotspot… but please turn the volume up The original Jumon in Belfast city centre proved that vegetarian cuisine could pack as much flavour, if not more, than those with meat. John Mulgrew paid a visit to its sister restaurant Jumon East, but found things were a little different and the dish that put it on his regular list, missing…

M

uch has changed in chunks of the east in the last few years.

Crystal ball in hand, you’re unlikely to have predicted that a former linen hall would become an events and arts centre, Detroit-style pizza would be revered by critics and brash TikTokers alike, and there would be not one, but two independent beer bars and breweries within walking distance of one another.

The East Belfast Constitutional Club, adjacent to one of the aforementioned drinking spots, recently shut its doors. Far from highlighting a changing demographic close by, perhaps, instead more a metaphorical signpost of the evolution of Belfast’s Newtownards

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Road and wider expanding suburbs – within hospitality at least.

Close by, there’s the EastSide Visitor Centre, and just a few yards away a grand brass leonine homage to Narnia author – and local boy – CS Lewis, whose notable works chart the fantastical stories of a gaggle of posh kids in a magical world, accessed through an enchanted wardrobe.

And just a few steps away from that sits the second chapter in the Jumon chronicles.

There’s something to be said about the repurposing of the humble shipping container.

Looking out over the docks, not too far from where we are, you’ll see hundreds of them,

awaiting transport by lorries, or tightly packed aboard a ship bound for warmer climates.

Jumon East is the latest culinary endeavour to call them home. The structure is somewhere between Brutalist architecture – the Harland & Wolff yellow and branding of one container sitting atop three others – and something you’d be familiar with shifting smash burgers in the heart of Shoreditch.

Jumon started off life as one of, if not the only, truly interesting vegetarian restaurant the city had to offer. The original location brought a lengthy list of big, bold, Asian flavours, took risks, and ramped up the umami. It barely put a foot wrong.

Spring rolls, miso houmous and Bombay potatoes at Jumon East

FOOD & DRINK

Despite the cold metallic exterior, Jumon East is a warm and welcoming environment.

It’s dark and more atmospheric than you might expect, given its home is a multitonne structure which may once have been a passenger on the high seas.

A Negroni-esque cocktail, instead packed with warming bourbon, is a strong opening act – clever, balanced and keeping the palate entertained for longer than most.

The menu itself appears to be a cut down version of what had been on offer just a couple of miles away, during my last visit – a selection of small plates, mains, and then a couple of sweets.

A plate of Bombay potatoes topped with yoghurt for that cut of acidity is well-spiced, rich, and balanced, as it should be for a quid shy of a tenner.

The miso houmous is a big bag of savouriness, with a little oil and accoutrements atop to keep things slippery and interesting, bringing added richness when scooped up

MARCH 2025

with the accompanying crisp and deckled poppadoms.

Spring rolls are solid and hearty, providing some vegetal and carby sustenance.

A Kundan curry arrives shortly after – a moderately-sized bowl with a burnt orangehued sauce, a few greens, a handful of red chillis and four small chunks of tofu.

It’s entirely finishable and there’s no obvious cooking or flavours amiss here. But it’s all a little underwhelming and muted, especially at £17.

A couple of spoonfuls of the company’s Hungley dish with ramen noodles in a creamy peanut sauce again fails to light the fire which helped put Jumon on the personal restaurant shortlist – underseasoned and a bit lifeless.

Service is adept, sharp and friendly with food and drinks arriving promptly, and with little faff or fluster.

A short menu often draws focus on the best a kitchen can offer, allowing it to get those few dishes as nailed on as possible.

THE BILL Miso houmous Spring rolls Bombay potatoes Hungley peanut curry Kundan curry Cocktails x2 Total

£9 £8 £9 £17 £17 £23 £83

While the original Jumon failed to a put a foot wrong, the volume feels like it’s just been turned down just a little here.

Why some of the classics which helped draw plaudits from kin and friends alike have been left off Jumon East’s menu – at least during our visit – remains something of a mystery; for example, the turnip and doenjang dip, a lesson in how to turn an unpopular root vegetable and ferment into something worth turning up at the door for alone.

There are still some interesting things at work here, and solid cooking. Just bring back that turnip dip, crank up the MSG and seasoning, and throw in a few more pieces of tofu while you’re at it. ■

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INTERVIEW

Karen Maguire, the founder of Relinea, tells James McNaney how she has become a champion of employee ownership, and a Pilates teacher

T

hese days, Karen Maguire doesn’t have a typical chief executive schedule. The former managing director of Relinea now spends much of her time teaching Pilates.

“I only started teaching recently, and I’m loving it,” she says. “I’m applying engineering principles to it, and I think the body is an amazing piece of engineering and we need to look after it.”

It’s a change of pace from her former job as the head of a successful firm that she founded, but Karen has not exited the business world entirely.

She still has a role with Relinea, which designs and makes glass reinforced plastic products, and heads up Employee Ownership Ireland (EOI).

The business group wants to create a community around the model of business that her company transitioned to in recent years.

Karen went to school in Crumlin and Belfast, before travelling to Kingston University in London to study chemistry and business administration.

After graduating, she worked some odd jobs while saving money for travelling. She eventually set off to India with a couple of friends, and spent a few years travelling through India, Nepal, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia.

She moved home and found a job with a firm “involved in the manufacture of chemical tanks”.

“That got me involved in the whole glass, free glass, fiberglass, reinforced plastic industry.

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‘This is not a co-op... it’s about having a sustainable business’ What Relinea would ultimately become was glass reinforced plastic structural products,” Karen says.

Relinea came about due to frustrations Karen had with the sector where she worked, and a feeling of “I could do a better job myself”.

A big help in founding Relinea was Karen’s father. She adds: “That was the start and it was just essentially me and my father.

“We set the business up just beside where I grew up in Crumlin. My father had run his own business and he was a big support to me.

“There were plenty of arguments over there, over the kitchen table and whatnot. But he was my wingman.”

Karen feels that watching her dad run his business as a child was part of why she wanted to start her own firm as an adult.

“I grew up in a household where he was out running a business. He had responsibilities,

but thrived on that. I think being in that environment and having that support network definitely gave me confidence to move forward with it.”

Relinea grew consistently over its early years, and Karen says she was focused on sustainable growth for the company.

“Bringing someone in, they’re leaving a job. I need to make sure that their job is sustainable.

Making sure we can honour the commitments we’re making to the people who are coming in.

“I’m a risk taker to a certain extent, but I’m not a risk taker when it comes to people’s jobs.”

Relinea was performing well, nearly doubling turnover and securing projects, when a major life event changed Karen’s feelings about her future.

“When my father passed away, that was a big blow. It was going in a really good

INTERVIEW

“When we transitioned, there were a lot of questions. What does it mean? What does employee ownership look like for Relinea?

“We’ve been working our way through that, just making sure we’ve got robust governance from both boards and progress in the business.

“There’s a plan going forward, not only in terms of how it grows and how it develops as a business, but how we ensure the employees

Karen Maguire

trajectory, and then that bombshell hit me,” she says.

“The passion went, and if you’re running a business and you’ve got responsibility for all these people, you have to have that passion.

“I found the next couple of years quite difficult, and then Covid came. In 2020, my mum passed away, it was another blow. I started to reflect on where my life was and what I wanted to get in life.

“I felt it was other people within the business who were much more capable of taking it to the next level.”

Karen began exploring a potential sale of the business, but said meetings with larger companies about a buyout left her feeling “dirty”.

She was also upset by the news of other local businesses being closed after being bought over by foreign companies.

MARCH 2025

It was her desire to ensure the company stayed profitable and local that made her begin to think about employee ownership – when a company has an employee trust that owns a significant share of the business, and has a say in how it is run.

She explored the option by talking to different firms that use the model, and felt it was the correct path for Relinea.

“It just felt like it was the right thing to do from my perspective, it was in line with my values.

“It was rewarding for the employees and the management team. It was securing the future of Relinea in Northern Ireland. It just seemed to tick all the boxes for me.”

Karen has been able to transition in recent years from being a managing director to a much smaller role focused on helping the new ownership model be viable.

as owners, and their needs and wants, are addressed in a way that is sustainable. That’s the key here.

“This is not a co-op. This is about actually having a sustainable business for the long term.”

Karen has set up a new group, EOI, to help support other businesses considering transitioning to employee ownership.

“The purpose of EOI is to get the message out there, if companies are considering succession, that employee ownership is a very successful option.

“I look at Northern Ireland, and we have amazing family-run businesses. And for one reason or another, they might be considering selling the business on. I want this just to be on the table.

“As long as it’s on the table, if they exclude it, that’s fine, but as long as it’s on the table.”

Karen is keeping busy with more than just EOI. “Alongside my work in Pilates, I provide mentoring support to female leaders,” she says.

“I’m currently mentoring a woman in Kenya through the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, which empowers women in developing countries to build successful businesses and access equal economic opportunities.

“This experience has been incredibly rewarding, giving me valuable insight into the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in developing countries. I’m also providing mentoring support through the Invest NI leadership programme.

“Supporting people, especially those who have faced barriers due to gender or economic background, is something I’m deeply passionate about.” ■

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FOOD & DRINK

Why simplicity matters when it comes to food From bacon wrapped dates to dry-aged steak, John Mulgrew believes the best way to deliver top flavours is by keeping things simple, and doing them well

Y

ou’ll walk into a restaurant at some point, whether it be posh, casual, or elbows on the table, and be greeted with a description and collection of ingredients and details which will have you longing for simplicity.

By its very nature, complication isn’t a dirty word. We revel in the ability of those behind the pass in being able to conjure up dishes and cooking we couldn’t possibly comprehend.

But the very best, at all ends of the spectrum, put perfect precision and simplicity at the core.

Take a spot serving jumped up ramen for those who like assertive social media and wear cool trainers.

If you haven’t been somewhere before and

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you’re greeted with something as simple as a bowl of noodles, yet it’s bursting with small text on the styled and perfectly formatted menu, then you’re often as likely to be as disappointed as you are contented and nourished.

A litany of ingredients, each sounding as punchy as the last, but when actually realised pales in comparison with something you’ll find on Donegall Pass or any number of quick and wallet friendly spots.

Turn your attention to those who best know each cuisine and dish.

Take fries or chips, at the cheaper end of things.

Loaded fries are for those who haven’t the confidence to serve the core product and

ingredient at their epicentre.

That’s often because they take time – lots of time – skill and effort.

Let’s instead pile a litany of fat and fatty protein atop poorly made fries, and charge a tenner for it – if you’re lucky. You’ll find considerably better versions at a decent chippy, who don’t utilise that awful ‘dude food’ moniker.

Take Stove in Belfast. You get a modest serving of deeply decked, crisp shards of potatoes which have been shown the respect they deserve. And while that may not work for the food pop-up or stall, burger spot Bunsen makes it work with simple, clean and uniform spuds which work perfectly alongside its equally as perfect encapsulation of that icon of

Dry-aged beef ribeye

FOOD & DRINK Roasted bone marrow

Cheese gougeres

fast food – the burger. The dry-aged burger at Minetta Tavern in New York is essentially a lesson in good butchery. Sandwiched between two bun slices and topped with onions cooked in beef fat, it’ll live with me until the day I die.

The former Ochos Tapas restaurant in Portrush formerly served dates wrapped in thick, dry-cured bacon. You’d go back for those alone.

The bone marrow at St John in London. A simple salad of parsley and shallot aside, it’s two ingredients. It’s a dish which put marrow on the modern menu map.

The madeleines at Wine and Brine in Moira.

A little surprise alongside a strong espresso at the end of a meal. A simple sideshow of flour,

MARCH 2025

egg and sugar, treated with the utmost respect and technique.

The garlic naan at Mumbai 27. The last time I was there it appeared they had forgotten that part of the order. So what emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later was straight out of the tandoor. Bubbling, supremely light, aerated and entirely impossible to stop eating.

Equally, while complex to bring together and only for the skilled chef, a terrine or pate en croute is a simple combination of different parts of the pig, encased in hefty pastry with a little aspic. It doesn’t rely on many nouns to sell itself.

At the even higher end, you’ll not find overly convoluted descriptors on the menu at OX. The techniques are considerably loftier than those of even the most adept home cook, but

if you’ve ever had one of its gougeres, then you’ll know that simplicity is at its heart. Even something which appears more complex still puts the key ingredients to the fore.

With some restaurants at home, you might see a hyperbolic use of provenance and sourcing. The word Irish making an appearance in front of any mammal, herbage or shrubbery, the CV of the individual who picked it, or celebrated the animal’s first birthday. It might be playing the game a touch to sell our fare to the tourist crowd, but it’s often overkill.

Chinese pork belly in black vinegar, souffle, a well-cooked dry-aged steak, crispy karaage, lamb kofta cooked quickly over hot charcoal, or a smartly curated cheese board. All of these things put simplicity at the core. And they are all the better for it. ■

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FOOD & DRINK

Creme brulee

Five essential desserts you should always order when eating out A good dessert can put a positive full stop at the end of a decent meal. John Mulgrew takes a look at the puddings which reign supreme when eating out

1

CRÈME BRÛLÉE I remember going through the guts of a litre of cream one slightly tipsy Christmas Day, trying my very best to get these little set custard gems to do exactly that… set.

While it takes some time to perfect, the crème brûlée remains one of the cleanest and perfect sweet finishes to a meal, when executed well. Poorly executed, and you’re either eating runny custard, or swallowing something more akin to sweet scrambled eggs than anything else.

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The classic French custard is a must order on any menu. It’s a simple combination of egg yolks, cream, vanilla and sugar – combined and then set by cooking in a bain-maire (water bath) in the oven, before finishing off with a scattering of sugar, crisped and caramelised with the help of a blowtorch.

2

BAKED ALASKA While a version of this dish may have hit something of its peak in popularity here in the 1970s, its origins appear to date

back all the way to the end of the 19th century – Charles Ranhofer, the pastry chef at the historic New York steak house Delmonico’s attributed to its creation.

It, like many other dishes, has had a resurgence here. And if a restaurant is taking the time to make it, it’s probably worth your time. A little dome of ice cream atop sponge, encased in a perfectly-shaped mound of Italian meringue, torched a little for some drama. If somewhere is sticking this on a menu, they likely know what they are doing. Stove Belfast offered a stunning pineapple version of this shortly after it opened, and I still think about it to this day.

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STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING There are few heartier ways to complete a dining experience than with the ubiquitous sticky toffee pudding. Even in its poorest expression, it’s normally still palatable.

FOOD & DRINK

Sticky toffee pudding

But when the mixture is just right, not overly dense, packed with the natural sweetness of dates and then topped off with a butter-rich sauce, it’s an impressive crowd-pleaser.

It’s not for those who are already feeling a little full or bloated after a heavy main course, but it’s certainly one to top off a meal when there’s room left. You will find some spots serving you up something which has come from the suppliers, rather than the kitchen (the giveaway can often be the little dimple left behind in the turned out pudding from the plastic container in which it came). But if a kitchen goes to the effort of making its own, it’s likely something you should order.

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CUSTARD TART Marcus Waring’s iteration of this classic baked custard tart won him many a plaudit when he chose it for his dessert during the BBC’s Great British Menu. It won, and

MARCH 2025

was subsequently the dish served to Queen Elizabeth II. Again, I bang on about simplicity, and this falls into that category. It’s just a set custard and pastry. But along the way, those elements are what separates an average cook and a chef with supreme ability. The custard tart is as perfect an expression of pastry work as possible – that little touch of nutmeg bringing some added warming spice to proceedings.

If you do get the chance to visit Fallow in London, then do not leave without trying its Chelsea Tart. It’s a variation on the custard tart which uses leftover whey from the cheesemaking process and produces a caramelised slice of perfection that makes it worth the £14 price tag.

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PANNA COTTA There’s something of a recurring theme here involving set custard and cream.

And while you’ll find the panna cotta on menus all over the place, and across the pricing spectrum, done well it’s a sublimely clean and light way to finish a meal off.

The classic version combines milk, cream, sugar and vanilla, set with a little gelatine – often turned out to reveal the appealing jiggling mound. But it’s also one which you can get wrong. I know I have. Aim too short on your setting agent and when it’s time to turn your pudding out, it’ll present itself as a mess of sugar-laden dairy on your plate.

Overdo it, and it’s an overly firm and almost chewy disaster.

But when the stars align, it’s a smooth, rich, yet airy and light, little full stop to proceedings. While it’s not necessary, I’ll give a restaurant more respect if they have the courage to set it and then turn it out for service, rather than leaving it in its own dish. ■

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Hannah Mary Kennedy HMK Property How did you get started in the industry?

My journey in property began at Propertynews as part of the sales and marketing team. After a brief detour into primary school teaching, I developed a more hands-on approach – buying and renting out properties. An opportunity to cover maternity leave at a local estate agency reignited my passion for the property market, and I remained there until launching HMK Property in January 2020.

The idea for HMK Property stemmed from the lack of flexible management options for landlords and investors.

My goal was to create a fresh, tailored approach to property management.

Working from a rented desk in my brothers’ city-centre office, I built strong relationships with landlords and tenants, gradually growing the business.

Typically, who are your clients or customers?

We offer a wide range of services across the residential property sector, catering to a diverse client base. Typically, our clients include individuals looking to buy or sell their home or investment property, as well as a growing number of landlords seeking a more flexible, hands-on approach to property management.

We don’t have a specific ‘type’ of client – our doors are open to everyone. However, it’s always rewarding to see repeat buyers, sellers, and landlords returning to us, alongside new faces beginning their property journey.

Do you enjoy what you do, and what in particular?

I’m fortunate to do what I love – working with people and helping them navigate property sales, rentals, and management. No two days are the same, and I thrive in a collaborative environment, working closely with solicitors, surveyors, and contractors to ensure seamless transactions.

My passion lies in residential sales and property management. I love the thrill of launching a new property and sharing in my clients’ excitement as their home or investment grows. As a small, independently run estate

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Entrepreneur OF THE Month agency, we treat every client like our only client.

Our customer-first approach has built a strong reputation, reflected in our achievements.

We’re proud to have won Highly Commended Agency of the Year at the Belfast Telegraph Property Awards, and to be finalists in the KPMG Property Excellence Awards and the highly competitive Best in Professional Service category at the Women in Business Awards 2025.

What is the most difficult part of your job?

One of the biggest challenges is managing the emotional attachment people develop to a property they hope to buy or rent.

Unfortunately, sometimes they miss out on what they consider to be ‘their house,’ and after working so closely with them, we genuinely feel their disappointment when they’re pipped to the post.

My best advice for anyone hoping to move?

Get all your ducks in a row early. Speak to

your mortgage adviser, appoint your solicitor at the same time as your agent – this will pay dividends later. If you need to sell to buy, get a valuation on your current home and be prepared to list it. Having your home on the market, preferably with an offer placed or sale agreed, will put you in a much stronger position than those who haven’t yet taken that step.

What are the challenges facing your sector and the economy?

The biggest challenge right now is the lack of new stock. Demand for quality homes in both the sales and rental markets remains exceptionally high, driving up prices and putting pressure on buyers. That’s why it’s crucial to speak with a mortgage advisor before bidding on your dream home.

Looking ahead, the upcoming changes to Stamp Duty in April 2025 will have a significant impact on the property market, potentially reducing affordability for many buyers and affecting their ability to move. ■

Motoring

By Pat Burns

MOTORING

Seven seater Sorento gets an update

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he Sorento is a consistently popular model for Kia here and has helped to transform perceptions of the brand in recent years.

The current fourth-generation model has just been given a major update, with a refreshed exterior and interior design, and an expanded specification line-up.

The updated Sorento takes design inspiration from the brand’s all-new flagship SUV, the EV9. This includes new vertical headlights and ‘star map’ daytime running lights, with redesigned alloy wheels and a new bonnet design to further emphasise the Sorento’s rugged appearance.

Inside, the Sorento is newly aligned with Kia’s latest SUV models, fully embracing Kia’s ‘Opposites United’ design philosophy. The new Sorento remains one of the best-equipped models in its segment, benefitting from several new premium features, dual curved 12.3-inch displays, ambient lighting, and fingerprint recognition and a customisable head-up display on ‘4’ grade models.

The Sorento’s innovative interior packaging means it can offer all this while accommodating Kia’s ‘Smartstream’ diesel, hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrain, making it one of the few models offered as a diesel, HEV and PHEV. The Sorento also retains its predecessors’ character as a true SUV, capable in all driving

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conditions and ideal as a long-distance family cruiser. Tuned to find a happy balance between performance and comfort, the Sorento offers one of the most engaging driving experiences in its segment, while also offering huge cargo capacity when needed.

The new Sorento is equipped with Kia’s ‘Terrain Mode’ system. This provides Sorento drivers with improved traction, stability and control on mud, snow and sand, with dedicated driving modes for each. The system makes the all-wheel drive SUV highly capable in a range of low-grip, low-traction driving conditions.

On the plug-in hybrid model, placing the 13.8kWh battery low down in the centre of the body, between the two axles, keeps the centre of gravity low and aids weight distribution. Locating the mass of the battery closer to the centre of the vehicle contributes to the Sorento’s balanced dynamic character, on- and off-road, and enhances handling agility.

The Sorento hybrid is powered by Kia’s ‘Smartstream’ electrified powertrain, pairing a 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol direct injection (T-GDi) with a 1.49kWh lithium-ion polymer battery pack. With the battery located under the front seat, the electrified powertrain has minimal impact on cabin and cargo space.

The electrified powertrain combines lower CO2 emissions with strong performance,

producing peak power output of 212bhp and peak torque of 367Nm. The engine features Kia’s Continuously Variable Valve Duration (CVVD) technology to boost performance at low-to-mid engine ranges and enhances fuel efficiency. Power is sent through a six-speed automatic transmission through a transmission-mounted electrical device, resulting in immediacy in acceleration response at any speed, with direct access to battery power at higher speeds.

The Sorento PHEV is the most powerful and lowest emitting model in the Sorento line-up, thanks to its plug-in powertrain and zero-emissions electric driving range.

Featuring the same 1.6-litre T-GDi engine as the regular HEV model, the larger battery pack and electric motor give the Sorento PHEV a 36bhp boost in peak power. The engine and motor are paired with a highcapacity 13.8kWh lithium-ion polymer battery.

The Sorento is also available with Kia’s 2.2-litre ‘Smartstream’ diesel engine, featuring an aluminium block for lightness.

The 190bhp, 440Nm engine is paired with an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission (8DCT).

Designed to offer the smooth shifting characteristics of a conventional automatic, the 8DCT enhances fuel efficiency over a conventional eight-speed automatic. Prices for the Sorento range start from £41,995. ■

MOTORING

Power and charging boosts for iX range

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he BMW iX was introduced in 2021 as the manufacturer’s first purposebuilt all electric sports activity vehicle.

This new model for 2025 builds on its success with a refreshed sportier design, increased system power output and a significant boost in range – now offering up to 426 miles (WLTP) on a single charge.

New model designations reflect the new BMW iX’s increased performance, available as the iX xDrive45; xDrive60 M Sport and the range-topping M70 xDrive Thanks to redeveloped electronics, advancements in battery technology and new measures to improve overall efficiency, power consumption in the statutory WLTP test cycle has been improved by more than eight per cent. In the new iX xDrive60 (which succeeds the xDrive50) this corresponds to around 34 miles of additional range.

A redesign contributes towards a bolder exterior presence which continues inside the cabin. The most significant changes come with an enhanced M Sport trim, which

MARCH 2025

brings sculpted front and rear aprons, new aerodynamically optimised 21 and 22-inch M light-alloy wheels, among other exclusive design features.

Through advancements in battery cell technology, net energy storage capacity is significantly improved across the range. The xDrive45 receives the most substantial uplift with an increase of around 30% to 94.8 kWh. Net energy content in the xDrive60 rises to 109.1 kWh, while the M70 xDrive provides 108.9 kWh of usable capacity.

In addition, new inverter technology for the electronics across all models enhances the energy efficiency of the drive system. This ensures a highly efficient transfer of energy from the high-voltage battery to the electric motor. These improvements, in combination with a larger battery for the xDrive45 and other efficiency-enhancing measures across all models, results in a range increase of up to 40 per cent, depending on the model.

With a WLTP range of up to 426 miles, the new xDrive60 M Sport sets a benchmark in its class, while the xDrive45 can travel up to 374

miles on a single charge, and up to 366 miles is achievable in the M70 xDrive. In addition, by activating the Max Range function, drivers can boost their vehicle’s remaining range by up to 25% before a charge stop.

With an electric motor on both the front and rear axle, all models are now all-wheel drive.

The xDrive45 has a power output of 408 hp – an 82 hp increase over the xDrive40 – shaving 1.0 second off the 0-62 mph sprint, which now takes 5.1 seconds. The total output for the xDrive60 rises by 21 hp to 544 hp, enabling a 0-62 mph acceleration of 4.6 seconds. Both models have an electronically limited top speed of 124 mph.

The M70 xDrive offers an even more thrilling driving experience where a system output of 659 hp can be unleashed in Sport mode. A maximum torque of 1,100 Nm is available when Launch Control is activated. It accelerates from 0 to 62 mph in 3.8 seconds and can reach a top speed of 155 mph.

First customer deliveries will arrive here from May 2025. The new BMW iX is priced from £74,400. ■

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MOTORING

New Swift is automatic choice

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ales of automatic cars are on the rise here with many young drivers now applying for an ‘automatic only’ licence.

Given the decline in new cars with manual gearboxes as well as the fact that all electric vehicles are automatic it’s easy to see why new drivers are so keen on autos.

Suzuki is ahead of the game here with their new Swift. Launched last year, the awardwinning Swift Hybrid has now added an automatic gearbox to the new range. There are not many small automatic cars on the market so it’s on to a winner here with a car that’s fun to drive and is very economical too. The new Swift looks both sporty and stylish with a youthful exuberance that appeals to drivers of all ages.

Suzuki’s CVT automatic transmission is available on both Motion and Ultra grades and is combined with the new 1.2-litre three cylinder mild hybrid powertrain. The CVT system can vary the actual gear ratio continuously from low-speed to high-speed range depending on the driving conditions.

On the Ultra model, gears can also be selected manually up or down via steering column

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mounted paddles.

CVT models remain extremely efficient with fuel consumption of 60.1mpg and CO2 emissions of just 108g/km. The new and highly efficient three-cylinder petrol engine with multi-point fuel injection has been developed for the new Swift which offers enhanced fuel economy, improved torque and even lower CO2 emissions than before. The maximum power output is 82PS with a slightly higher torque figure of 112Nm at just 4,500rpm, acceleration time to 62mph is 11.9 seconds for the CVT. Fuel efficiency is further enhanced when paired with the self-charging hybrid system powered by a lithium-ion battery with capacity of 10Ah to improve energy recovery efficiency.

Fitted as standard equipment for the new Swift, the 12V mild hybrid system is a compact and lightweight unit that incorporates an integrated starter generator (known as ISG) which acts as both a generator and starter motor, the ISG is belt driven and assists the engine during vehicle take off and acceleration and also generates electricity through regenerative braking. The ISG unit has a power output of 2.3kW with a torque figure of 60Nm.

In situations that require higher fuel use, such as when starting from a standstill or accelerating, the hybrid system helps suppress fuel consumption by providing electric motor assist using electricity generated through regenerative braking.

Because the ISG uses a belt drive rather than a conventional starter motor to restart the engine after an automatic engine stop it allows for a quiet and smooth start.

Standard equipment for Motion grade is very comprehensive and includes heated front seats, 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlamps, navigation, rear view camera, rear parking sensors, adaptive cruise control, wireless smartphone link display audio, keyless entry and start, driver monitoring system, dual sensor brake support, lane departure warning and weaving alert, rear cross traffic alert, blind spot monitor and enhanced traffic sign recognition. Prices start at £19,199.

Ultra grade adds 16-inch polished alloy wheels, automatic air conditioning, rear passenger heater outlet and electric folding door mirrors incorporating side turn indicators. ■

MOTORING

EV sales rising but remain behind government targets

By John Mulgrew

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lectric car sales continue to rise across the UK – with one in every five cars sold, fresh figures show.

However, at 21.3% of the market, sales remain behind last year’s government target of 22% and considerably short of this year’s 2025 number of 28%.

Electric car sales were up 41.6% year-onyear.

But sales of EVs here remain lower than the UK as a whole.

Overall, the new car market in the UK fell by 2.5% in January, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

In Northern Ireland, sales fell further still – dropping by more than 6%.

The Kia Sportage was the top selling car here, with 162 vehicles shifted.

That was followed by the Peugeot 3008, with 140 units, and the Nissan Qashqai with 137 vehicles.

The SMMT said the fall in the new

MARCH 2025

car market came amid “weak consumer confidence and tough economic conditions combined to deliver the fourth consecutive month of decline”.

There remain industry calls for a halt to EV tax hikes as latest outlook anticipates 23.7% market share for 2025 – below government targets.

“January’s figures show EV demand is growing – but not fast enough to deliver on current ambitions,” Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said.

“Affordability remains a major barrier to uptake, hence the need for compelling measures to boost demand, and not just from manufacturers. The application, therefore, of the ‘Expensive Car Supplement’ to VED on electric vehicles is the wrong measure at the wrong time. Rather than penalising EV buyers, we should be taking every step to encourage more drivers to make the switch, helping meet government, industry and societal climate change goals.”

It says the Expensive Car Supplement (ECS)

– dubbed the ‘luxury car tax’ when launched – has remained unchanged at £40,000 since it was set eight years ago, when the overall market was 30% larger than today and battery electric vehicles (BEV) barely featured.

“With more than twice as many BEVs registered this January than in the whole of 2017, raising the eligibility threshold for EVs – or exempting them from the ECS entirely – would send the message that EVs are essentials, not luxuries, and ensure vehicle taxation remains fair and appropriate for today’s market conditions,” the SMMT said.

“Despite the increase in the month, BEV market share still remains short of the 22% target set by government for last year, and even further behind the 28% requirement for 2025.

“This gap between demand and ambition is why the review of the Vehicle Emissions Trading Scheme and its flexibilities is essential and must deliver meaningful changes urgently, else there will likely be significant negative consequences for the market, industry and, potentially, the consumer.” ■

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APPOINTMENTS

Steven Duggan is now a partner at law firm A&L Goodbody. Mr Duggan joined the firm’s Belfast corporate and M&A team as a partner in November, having spent the past four years with an international firm in Dublin.

Catherine Irvine is now a partner at law firm A&L Goodbody. Having joined the firm as a trainee in 2012, Catherine Irvine advises a wide range of clients across a variety of business and industry sectors on corporate transactions.

Mulrines has appointed Paddy Murney as chief commercial officer as the company seeks to grow its commercial sales and deliver sustainable business growth.

Orla McGivern has been appointed as PR account executive at Elevator. She works across a number of consumer accounts and she puts her knowledge of social media to good use in identifying creative influencer partnerships.

Erin Murphy has been promoted to the position of senior account executive at Elevator. She oversees social media management for clients across various platforms, including content creation, scheduling ,and paid ad campaigns.

HNH has appointed Peter Willis as associate director within the deal advisory department. He will specialise in delivering financial due diligence and other support services for clients in across the UK and Ireland.

Martin Gillespie is the new director of asset management at Radius Housing.

With over 25 years of experience in the facilities management sector, Mr Gillespie has held senior and operational board roles in multi-national organisations.

Michael McCrory has been appointed as director at Elevator, bringing nearly 30 years of experience to the role. In this role, he will oversee the delivery of a comprehensive range of PR services for clients.

Nicola Averell has been appointed as an associate director in the tax team at Sumer Northern Ireland. She has 14 years’ experience working in a ‘Big Four’ firm where she was an integral part of the private client tax team.

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1. The Ladies Gaelic Football Association has announced DFI Beds as the association’s first Official Sleep partner.

Pictured are Helen O’Rourke, Marion Hayden, Róisín Ambrose, Brian McCann, Áine McCann, and Charlene Tyrell.

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2. Neighbourhood Café has reopened in new, larger premises on Donegal Street, following a significant investment by its owners, supported by the Investment Fund for Northern Ireland (IFNI), managed by Whiterock Capital Partners.

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3. Chefs Lauren Shimmin from The Tailor’s House Ballygawley and Mark Wilson from Friels Bar and Restaurant Swatragh help launch this year’s Taste Mid Ulster Restaurant Week.

4. Counting down to the 2025 Balmoral Show in partnership with Ulster Bank is Rhonda Geary, group operations director, RUAS, with Cormac McKervey, senior agricultural manager, Ulster Bank.

5. Liberty IT has launched its annual recruitment drive and is seeking five new apprentice software engineers. Robyn Lakes is pictured with apprentice software engineers Andrew Skilling and Brea Donachy.

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6. The Northern Ireland Social Care Council has showcased a new and invaluable digital learning resource series aimed at supporting children and young people to thrive.

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7. Catalyst has announced the appointment of one of Northern Ireland’s best-known science and technology leaders, Dr Rob Grundy, as its new director of innovation partnerships.

MARCH 2025

8. Hagan Homes has started work on its £18m Springwater Development in Ballyclare.

Pictured are Kate Dempsey, architectural consultant and Andrea Sinclair, planner, Hagan Homes.

9. The public has had its chance to contribute ideas for the new Belfast Stories project, which will see the former Bank of Ireland building developed as a new visitor attraction. Pictured are Lisanne Pol, Wendy Langham, Lord Mayor of Belfast Micky Murray, and Aidan Mullholland.

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10. Stephen Donnelly, Arthur Mallon’s commercial director, is joined by Rachel Reid, head coach of The Lagan Dragons and winner of the BBC Sport NI’s Unsung Hero award.

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11. A new interactive online learning tool, Classroom RevivR, has been launched

by British Heart Foundation Northern Ireland (BHF NI).

Pictured are Catherine McGourty with pupils Phoebe Deazley and Torin Deeney and Fearghal McKinney of BHF NI.

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12. Lawrence Bannon, Black Sheep Coffee-Ireland, Michael Stewart, Lord Mayor of Belfast Micky Murray and Arthur Schumann, Black Sheep Coffee, at the launch of its first cafe here in Belfast city centre.

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13. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has appointed Rachel McCorriston as the new head of policy for Northern Ireland. She is pictured with Roger Pollen, head of FSB NI.

14. BGF is on track to reach £100m of investment into the Northern Irish market in 2025.

Pictured are Matt Jones and Chris Nixon, BGF Belfast.

15. Magherafelt-based construction company Henry Brothers has announced the renewal of its sponsorship of Rainey Hockey Club for the next three seasons.

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16. Belfast city centre is celebrating the renewal of its Purple Flag status for the fifth year in a row. Pictured are Martina Connolly, Michael Stewart, Damien Corr, and Chris McCracken.

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17. Stephen Milford from Nisa Shankill is pictured with Eurospar Shankill Road store manager, Jenna. The former Nisa Post Office has moved to the store after being acquired by Henderson Retail.

MARCH 2025

18. Fiona Brown from Belfast is pictured with her daughter Elle as she launches her new online retail venture, VOCÊ, which offers a collection of non-slip silicone grip socks for Pilates, yoga and Barre.

19. Maxflow, a Northern Irelandbased manufacturer of industrial pressure washers and power products, has secured a finance package issued by Ulster Bank and guaranteed by UK Export Finance (UKEF). Pictured are Ryan Wylie and Leona McNicholl.

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20. Mourne Park, is set to reopen following damage from Storms Darragh and Éowyn, with a significant financial windfall from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Pictured are Dr Paul Mullan with Dave Scott.

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21. Economy Minister Dr Caoimhe Archibald (centre) has launched the Northern Ireland Skills Barometer 2023-2033. She is pictured with Kathleen O’Hare, Mark Magill, Professor Paul Bartholomew, and Suzanne Wylie.

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22. Pictured at the launch of Maxol Fortwilliam Service Station are Maxol Fortwilliam licensee, Mark Nelson, Sarah Halliday, Henderson Group, Brian Donaldson, chief executive, The Maxol Group and Kevin Paterson, retail manager NI, The Maxol Group.

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23. A team of over 20 business leaders from across Ireland, UK and the US, have launched their 26 Mountains 2 Mayo challenge in aid of Cancer Fund for Children. Pictured are Phil Alexander, Roger Johnston and Graeme Neill.

24. Nine Squared Belfast has opened at the Printworks building following a £300,000 investment and the creation of 10 new jobs.

Pictured are owners Neil Cole and Sean McDonnell.

25. Gaelscoil na Daróige Primary School has won the inaugural Brennans Bread sustainability competition, Dough It Yourself – The Great Bread Challenge, an initiative for Key Stage 2 children.

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26. Visit Belfast has unveiled its new food and drink brand position, designed to enhance the city’s vibrant gastronomic tourism. Pictured are Anne McMullan, Glenn Stewart, Lord Mayor of Belfast Micky Murray, and Andrew Dougan.

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27. HMK Property, an independent estate agency in east Belfast, marks its fifth anniversary. Pictured are Hannah Mary Kennedy, founder of HMK Property alongside Lynn Stevenson, estate agent.

MARCH 2025

28. Air Ambulance Northern Ireland is proud to have been re-accredited the prestigious Investing in Volunteers accreditation, the UK quality standard for volunteers.

29. M&S and YoungMinds launch a competition for young people to create a winning design for this year’s M&S and YoungMinds Hello Yellow kidswear collection.

Pictured are Harry and Esme Towers, alongside Ryan Lemon.

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30. CompareNI.com Fintech Scholarship winner Bronagh Cassidy, an economics student from Ulster University, as the search for this year’s scholarship candidate begins.

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31. Mid South West Region Governance Steering Group chair, Kevin Savage, Ben Craig, CarbonFit, and Abigail McConville, executive director at Simplyfruit, launching the SME Big Breakfast Briefing, which is happening at the Glenavon Hotel in Cookstown on March 6.

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32. Mary Waide, SVP regional president, and Anne McLarnon, SVP Northern Region retail committee chair, launch Vincent’s Share the Love campaign.

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33. The Taste of Tourism Summit, organised by the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation (NIHF), returns to the Culloden Estate and Spa on March 10-11. Pictured are Pamela Ballantine with Mark Begley, Culloden Estate and Spa.

34. Sarah Burns of Dundonald Primary School and Nursery Unit accepts the Eastside Award for Excellence in Health and Wellbeing from Emma McConkey of sponsor Phoenix Energy and Tara Mills at the Eastside Awards 2024, in association with Belfast City Airport.

35. Lewis Silkin Belfast has appointed two new staff amid its latest expansion. Pictured are Emma Wightman, Megan Kerr, Mathew Forde, Kerry Neely and Mathilda Arnett.

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36. Active Health is proud to announce the successful handover of a £2,098 donation to Alzheimer’s Society, raised through their festive fundraising efforts during December. Pictured are Jenay McCartan from Alzheimer’s Society NI, Rachel Saligari and Susan Morrison from Active Health.

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37. Danske Bank is looking for 17 new apprentices to join its higher level apprenticeship programme, Danske Futures. Pictured are Mark Clements, Adil Hanif, Jonathan Copeland, Becca Millar, Sian Blair and Jess Silcock.

MARCH 2025

38. Phoenix Energy has launched its sponsorship of popular radio show ‘U105 Drive’ with Johnny Hero (right), which airs on weekdays between 4pm and 8pm. He’s pictured with Emma Kernohan from Phoenix Energy.

39. The Culloden Estate and Spa, Grand Central Hotel and Europa Hotel have each picked up a Merit Award at the CIE Tours International Awards of Excellence, which took place in Dublin.

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40. O’Reilly Stewart Solicitors has announced the appointment of Stuart Gilmore as its new managing director and a significant new addition to its healthcare department with the recruitment of Aine Tyrrell as a partner. They are pictured with Patrick Mullarkey, head of healthcare.

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LIFESTYLE

Breitling’s range of new Six Nations watches

Breitling hoping to answer Ireland’s call with new Chronomat range Breitling has long had ties to sport, including its relationship with the Six Nation Rugby championship. It’s now unveiled a new limited range, available at its boutique at Queen’s Arcade in Belfast, for each of the teams involved

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port and horology have arguably one of the strongest partnerships and business bonds.

Rolex long had its relationship with Formula 1 – although it has relinquished that in 2025 – along with its PGA role, Tag Heuer is synonymous with motorsports, as well as tie-

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ins with other sporting events, while Omega has served as the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Games since 1932.

Breitling also has had similar relationship, none more so than with its long-term partnership with the Six Nations Rugby, and remains its official timing partner.

And for this tournament, it’s unveiled a series of watches in its Chronomat line – two models for each of the six European sides competing for victory, limited to 150 pieces for each piece in the range.

Now, at the time of writing this – or when you are reading it – we’ll hope that the boys

LIFESTYLE

FACTFILE MODEL: Breitling Chronomat GMT 40mm MOVEMENT: Breitling 32 CASE SIZE: 40mm MATERIAL: Stainless steel PRICE: £4,950

in green have managed to lift the trophy once again. Here’s hoping.

Each shares a common DNA and look, but, aside from the obvious dial colour differences, there are little nuances and touches which set each apart.

There’s a 40mm option and a smaller 32mm on offer, both with stainless steel cases and bracelets. The former, in particular, is a clever choice. It’s that perfect size which rarely looks too hefty on most, but will have enough wrist presence to keep even those with chunkier dimensions happy.

The Chronomat is a watch bathed in a combination of polishing and brushing. There’s a gleaming polished uni-directional dive bezel with four raised markers at the 3, 6, 9 and 12 positions, with an onion-shaped ridged crown.

The bracelet follows the same spec as the standard range – a bullet-style offering with two little points of polishing, but otherwise brushed.

MARCH 2025

Breitling’s Ireland Rugby-inspired watch

It sits very comfortably on the wrist, thanks to the lugs which come in at just over 47mm.

The lugs are 20mm which offers you plenty of range if you’re a strap fiend, and comes in at a relatively thin 11.8mm in case depth.

For these models, however, it’s all about the dials. Whether it’s the deep, rich blue of Scotland, the subtle white/silver finish of the England variant, or the verdant pop of the Ireland option, each has its own merits.

As for the dial finish, a standard sunburst or

There’s a gleaming polished uni-directional dive bezel with four raised markers at the 3, 6, 9 and 12 positions, with an onion-shaped ridged crown

textured option is out. Instead, there are subtle thick lines, variations in the way it plays with the light, evoking the pitches on which the games are played.

It’s a little touch of separation from the brand’s standard models, but not enough to put anyone off opting for one if they have little interest in the sport itself.

The hands are sharp and polished silver for hours, minutes and seconds, while the GMT hand comes in differing hues, depending on the model.

Inside beats a Breitling 32 in the 40mm variety, an automatic movement based off an ETA 2893-2, while the smaller model opts for a Breitling 77, which is a quartz movement.

The 40mm variant is a balanced and attractive piece, wearable in most scenarios.

The green reference is likely to be the most popular, not only given that it’s Ireland’s, but also because the colour remains particularly en vogue among the watch community. ■

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TRAVEL

Getting hot and cold in the Alps Serene Austrian wellness getaway does not disappoint Madeleine Keane who notes the usual sauna rules apply

A

s addictions go, it isn’t the worst.

The latest to add to my long list is, in a new departure for me, a very healthy one. I have fallen for saunas.

They’re much valued in many cultures and in tandem with our recent sea-swimming craze, have become a booming business in Ireland. So, for this hot pod fan, it was a joy to experience a traditional Lapland version on a recent trip to Austria.

My sister and I were staying in Priesteregg, a family-owned retreat in the mountains of Leogang, in Zell am See. Our journey had taken us, via Frankfurt, to Salzburg, where we collected our rental car. Driving through verdant, velvet valleys dotted with plump cows felt like living in an ad for a chocolate bar and even the directions to our destination (such a special secret sat nav won’t find it) evoked this region of western Austria’s quaint charm: “Turn right at the bakery.”

The almost absurd levels of picturesque continued when we arrived at a vertiginous hillside punctuated with 16 chalets, each one fronted with a window box of scarlet geraniums, wooden deck chairs draped with sheepskin rugs, a plethora of candles and a log fire ready to light. Charming doesn’t cover it.

Smiling girls in floral dirndl dresses handed us glasses of rosé frizzante to smooth the check-in process and then it was straight into our wellness programme.

Living south of the Arctic Circle, in Swedish Lapland, Henry and Pia Huuva are sauna builders and hosting a retreat here. Full of energy and joie de vivre in their 70s, they are proof positive of the many benefits of sweating

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away the toxins and stresses of modern life.

My daughter, another swelter shelter enthusiast, had flagged it would probably be a naked affair, and she was right. The ladies in our 16-strong group maintained their modesty with towels but among the males there was not only full nudity but some manspreading – as unnecessary as it was unappealing.

Still, this was a superb experience. A smoke sauna, it got very hot and aromatic. After every 15-minute block of intense heat, Henry encouraged us out into the crisp mountain air to an icy waterfall shower and shots of lingonberry and chicken liver pate on crackers to replenish our salt, sugar and moisture levels.

An exhilarating event, the effects lingered long after and I slept brilliantly for many subsequent nights.

It would be hard to beat the Priesteregg breakfast show which is served in your chalet.

You awake to the sounds of hushed efficiency and when you emerge from your bedroom, it’s all there. The candles are lit, the coffee steaming, and the table is set with platters of ham, cheeses, fruit, yoghurts and a variety of freshly baked breads and pastries. It’s the best of all breakfast worlds because you don’t even have to get dressed for it. All you need to do is cook the eggs and bacon.

After a couple of days swimming, hiking and yoga, it was time for a change of address, so we headed to Saalbach-Hinterglemm, some 30km away. A winter sports wonderland, this area with its 270-kilometre skicircus of slopes is very popular with Irish visitors.

In a different mood entirely from our earlier lodgings, the hotel Wiesergut, which was built

12 years ago on the ground of a 14th century manor house, was very Architectural Digest.

Our vast bedroom whispered urban chic – all double height ceilings and an elegant blend of natural fabrics (wood, stone and linen), with Aesop toiletries and, delight of delights, a Dyson hair dryer.

As we were deep in ski territory, there was a fire in the bedroom, a hot tub on the terrace facing the piste, and it was a short stroll to the Zwolferkogel cable car.

Mid-October it was quiet and an unseasonal 20C, so we sunbathed and read by the pool.

The hotel was about to close completely for the month of November, ahead of the hectic ski season. The coming one promises to be even busier with the Alpine Ski World Championships taking place on February 4-16. A giant spectators’ stand was under

TRAVEL

Taking in some of the views at Priesteregg in Austria

construction beside the Wiesergut while we were there, so this will be an ideal place to stay.

For our last supper we went full-on Austrian mode and undid of all the benefits of our exercise and saunas by feasting on crunchy wiener schnitzel and fries, followed

by Kaiserschmarrn – best described as a sort of fluffy pancake torn into bite-sized pieces served with apple sauce and plum compote – accompanied with a divine Gruner Veltliner, the popular local white wine. The food here is supplied by their farm and is uniformly excellent: a special note of praise for the a la carte breakfast which seems to have about 10 courses.

And so finally to Salzburg. Mention its name to anyone who has visited, and a wistful smile crosses their face. My father remembers being

MARCH 2025

there as a student in the early 1950s when it was in the American Zone and occupied by the Allies. Situated on the border of Germany, it has fine views of the Eastern Alps.

The Salzach river slices through the city which is dominated by Festung Hohensalzburg, the imposing 900-year old clifftop fortress.

As we only had a few hours to scope out Salzburg, we headed to the left bank and the pedestrianised Aldstadt. This beautiful baroque quarter of courtyards and churches was designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by Unesco in 1996.

Our first port of call was the city’s number one attraction: Mozart’s Geburtshaus. It was disappointing to see a Spar tacked on to the ground floor, but the museum itself has been meticulously maintained and it was very moving to walk through these small, lovingly

curated rooms and imagine the young genius living and working in them. Born in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus spent the first 17 years of his life here.

One portrait of the famed composer, dressed in a magnificent costume given to him by a grateful archduke after a concert he performed, caught my eye. I peered at the date on the painting: the boy wonder was eight at the time.

My travelling companion is a botanist, so naturally she was drawn to Mirabellgarten; the exquisite flower gardens where the Do-Re-Mi scene from The Sound of Music was filmed.

Coffee and cake are a national pastime in this country – Austria is famous for its coffee houses – so in Café Konditorei, over lattes and sliced of Sachertorte we planned our next visit to this gorgeous place. ■

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TECHNOLOGY

It makes sense to prepare home back-up systems for when the next big storm rolls in, writes Adrian Weckler

T

he recent storms have left hundreds of thousands of homes without power, with many out of connectivity for significant time after the weather.

Such storms, we’re told, will only become more common.

What if you had your own home generator?

Something you could fire up and would power your fridge, wifi, some lights and maybe even a heater?

Or how about a solar battery? A gas superser? Or even a wind-up charger or FM radio?

Here’s a list of emergency storm-proof tech that could help exposed homes out.

1

HOME GENERATORS Home generators come in either portable or larger stationary formats and cost from around £420 up to about £2,500 for normal domestic usage, depending on what you need them for and how much their output will be. Most are powered by either diesel or petrol.

Smaller portable models can be used to operate things like kettles, small stove rings, wi-fi routers, fridges, lights and tellies – although maybe not all at the same time.

Larger ones, especially when integrated into your home’s fuse board by an electrician, can power much of the rest of the house.

You can buy them in building providers’ outlets, with smaller ones sometimes available in large hardware chains.

Popular brands include Honda and Hyundai, although there are a half-dozen other marques commonly sold.

They’re not especially complicated to use,

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From generators to chargers and solar batteries: how to survive a blackout but need some getting used to.

Many operate using an initial cord-pull, while some have an electric starting button.

Because they use petrol and diesel motors, they tend to be quite noisy and are operated outdoors, with the requisite cabling into the home. “Inverter” petrol models are often quieter.

Like most motors, they need to run fairly regularly, typically once a month. They also need semi-regular maintenance and fuel can’t be left too long in the units, either, as it gets stagnant and has to be drained from the engine.

To power a small home’s essential needs requires a unit anywhere between 2,000 and 6,000 watts, according to Peter Finn, a contributor to the popular TV programme

Home Rescue and also known as Pete The Builder on Instagram.

However, smaller cheaper models start with smaller output levels. To integrate one into a house’s existing electricity set-up will cost between £170 and £420 to an electrician for the job.

2

SOLAR BATTERIES (PLUS PANELS) An alternative to a petrol or diesel generator is a domestic solar set-up with backup batteries. This is relatively expensive, even including the SEAI grants available. A typically basic household array will cost from about £4,000 to supply and install.

An accompanying battery system (for when there’s no sunlight, like at night) then also costs around £3,300. The advantage, though,

TECHNOLOGY

Solar panels and batteries are one form of back-up if the power goes out

is that this isn’t just a blackout solution, but something that will permanently lower your electricity bills all year round.

In general, a solar battery should keep your home powered for about a day of basic household use. They’re available through the solar installation service chosen.

3

PORTABLE POWER STATION If you just want the absolute basics outside of heating, such as some lighting, a wi-fi router and a phone charger, a retail portable power station can be useful.

It contains between five and 10 times the back-up power of a regular mobile power bank for a tablet, phone or laptop.

One example is Energizer’s 72000mAh portable power station – £225 from DID

MARCH 2025

Electrical. While such devices keep their battery charges for a long time, often years, it’s worth topping them up about once every six months to be sure, particularly heading into winter months.

4

SUPERSER GAS HEATER Get ready for a trip back to your nan’s house in the 1970s. A standalone gas heater can be a very useful thing in an extended power blackout. They’re relatively affordable, too, typically costing around £125, or less, plus the canister of gas you’ll need. Although they’re available fairly easily in many hardware and home improvement stores, their outage-era popularity can be seen by the fact that they’re sold out in many places at present.

5

HAND-CRANK CHARGER/RADIO/ LIGHT What if you find yourself with no power at all and you forgot to buy batteries for the only torch you have? Hand-crank devices can provide temporary respite by giving you a bit of light or allowing you charge another device for a few minutes through five to 10 minutes of winding the gadget up.

You can get them in some hardware shops and on several online stores. For example, FosPower’s Wind Up Radio, an AM/FM battery radio with a 2000mAh power bank, reading lamp and solar radio built in.

As well as having a hand-crank mechanism, it also takes batteries and has a small solar array in case you want to build up power reserves that way. ■

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my day

UNCOVERING THE 9-5

key to keeping the hotel’s profile high and creating new opportunities. I will meet with local companies, event planners, tourism and other partners to discuss existing and new opportunities. It’s great to see the hotel being considered for important corporate hotel programmes, entertainment groups and conferences, as well as special events.

Siobhan Kielt Director of sales and marketing, AC Hotel by Marriott Belfast 7.30am My day always begins with a cup of coffee. I don’t eat breakfast until I get into work and use this time to check out what’s happening in the news. I might also have quick look at my emails and the latest hotel sales reports, although I try not to until I get into work.

8.30am I really enjoy the drive to work when I think about the day’s priorities whilst listening to music or a podcast. My working day usually begins with a catch-up with the hotel’s general manager, Paula Stuart, and the sales and marketing team. I am very fortunate to work with such a hardworking and motivated group of people. We will discuss current bookings, upcoming events and any potential challenges.

Communication is vital for understanding current business performance, as well as the guest experience, to ensure we are exceeding customer and revenue expectations.

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10am The morning is often filled with brainstorming sessions for upcoming marketing campaigns.

We will talk through the latest initiatives, from online promotions to social media activity and print collateral, ensuring that everything reflects our brand’s core values and target markets. I am always excited about showcasing the hotel’s modern design, city centre location and views of the Titanic Quarter which offer a unique experience for both business and leisure travellers.

12pm I like to step out of the office for lunch and often go for a short walk with a colleague along the Maritime Mile. I never tire of the views of the Belfast skyline, and it clears the mind for the afternoon ahead which is usually focused on meeting with potential clients or attending networking events. As director of sales and marketing, building relationships is

3pm The rest of the afternoon often involves coordinating with the sales team to confirm larger pieces of business. I am responsible for driving the sales and marketing strategy for our bedrooms and event spaces, generating business from corporate and other sectors.

Whether it’s a residential conference, corporate meeting, private dinner or an incentive group, our hotel can provide the perfect venue, together with the high standards you can expect from a global brand like Marriott.

6pm By this time, I am typically wrapping up my day with a quick review of the ‘to do’ list, completing any remaining urgent tasks and prioritising the next day’s objectives. I also have a quick debrief on the day’s performance with our revenue manager, Fiona Hamilton.

We are always looking for ways to make improvements to performance, so it is important to talk about what is working and what isn’t.

After a busy day, it is also nice to take a moment to reflect on what’s been achieved.

It’s always fulfilling to see the hotel’s success grow through our combined team efforts.

Then it’s time for home. ■