UK prime minister Theresa May elicited gleeful applause this week as she danced on to the stage at the Conservative Party conference to the tune of Abba's Dancing Queen, but perhaps Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! might have been more apt.
It was hardly a Churchillian entrance, but it’s been a tough year for May, and most people seemed to appreciate she was just poking fun at herself after she was widely ridiculed for her moves during a recent trade mission to Africa.
In her speech May repeated her call for the EU to treat Britain with respect in the negotiations, and she said she could not accept what she characterised as the two unacceptable options currently offered by the EU.
However, in a sign that a breakthrough might be on the cards, she also called for hardliners in her party to accept compromise or face the prospect of remaining in the European Union.
So what might that compromise look like? The word coming out of London is that May will agree to Brussels’ demands that Northern Ireland stay part of the single market regulatory area of the bloc.
May is also prepared to accept some checks on goods travelling between Britain and Ireland, but away from the Border. Whether the DUP would swallow that or pull down her minority government remains to be seen.
In return May wants the EU to concede to her demands that under the backstop plan the whole UK – rather than just Northern Ireland – would stay in the customs union until a UK/EU trade deal is finalised.
There were also positive sounds from London in relation to comments by European Council president Donald Tusk who said a Canada-plus-plus-plus deal was on the table.
The Canadian agreement with the EU is a straightforward free trade deal that the EU has suggested could be tailored to UK needs if it retains its red lines on membership of the customs union and the single market.
Tusk said the “plus, plus, plus” element would be “much further-reaching on trade, on internal security and on foreign policy co-operation”. Whatever happens, all of this must be sorted out ahead of a crucial EU summit this month.
Meanwhile, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told us what we already know: that in the event of a no-deal scenario, British planes may not be able to land on the European continent.
At home, new figures from the Central Statistics Office showed nearly 3,400 Irish exporters traded exclusively with the UK in 2016.
Budget day
Try to contain your excitement, but it’s budget day on Tuesday, when Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe will lay out the landscape of State spending and taxes for 2019.
There would appear to be little scope for giveaways as tax receipts for the first nine months of the year are still running behind target. The latest exchequer returns show the Government collected €37.5 billion.
While this was €1.9 billion or 5 per cent ahead of last year, it was slightly (€127 million) below expectations. This was driven in the main by excise duty, which came in 8 per cent or €339 million below profile.
That being said, the Department of Finance upgraded its growth forecasts for the economy to 7.4 per cent for this year, from 5.6 per cent previously, and to 4.2 per cent for next year (from 4 per cent).
Elsewhere, Irish consumer confidence dropped sharply to a 21-month low in September, which was put down to Brexit anxiety in the latest consumer sentiment index from KBC Bank Ireland and the ESRI.
In terms of the job market, the number of claimants on the live register unexpectedly rose in September. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the live register total recorded a monthly increase of 1,600 or 0.8 per cent last month.
All in all, though, the economy is still purring, which no doubt has something to do with talk in Government circles of reintroducing bonuses for bankers.
Donohoe has hired Korn Ferry, one of the world’s largest headhunting firms, to assess pay across the industry, a decade after Irish taxpayers were forced to guarantee the financial system to the tune of €64 billion.
Later in the week Central Bank governor Philip Lane said there was "a good case" to be made for bankers receiving performance-related pay if it can be adapted when circumstances change.
This would see bonuses falling if a lender’s profits decline, or being clawed back in the event of weaker-than-expected performance or misconduct by a firm or individuals.
Ryanair firefighting
It was a week to forget for a number of major companies, including Ryanair and Facebook, who seem to be constantly fighting fires.
Ryanair’s shares closed down 12.5 per cent in Dublin on Monday as the airline issued a profit warning, citing higher costs and weaker fares due to recent strikes, as well as rising oil prices.
Separately, however, it welcomed a ruling by the commercial court in Barcelona that no compensation should be paid to customers whose flights are cancelled due to strike action.
At Facebook the data commissioner is investigating the circumstances of a cyber attack that allowed hackers to access up to 50 million accounts at the social media group, something that could expose the company to huge fines.
There was better news elsewhere as the share price of Irish-Swiss baked goods group Aryzta jumped 30 per cent despite reporting a full-year loss of €470 million. The Cuisine de France maker's results were – for a change – in line with expectations, with the bad news already having been priced in by the markets.
Finally, there was big news in retail sector, as a unit of the Rockefeller Group joined up with Paddy McKillen jnr's Press-Up Entertainment to buy and redevelop the former Clerys department store in Dublin for about €63 million.
