Vaccines doses, underfunded pensions, and gifting your child a house deposit

Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from The Irish Times business desk

A technician working on the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 candidate vaccine. The university and its pharmaceutical partner, AtraZeneca, said they were seeking regulatory approval for the vaccine after it showed an average 70 per cent effectiveness. Photograph: JOHN CAIRNS/University of Oxford/AFP via Getty Images
A technician working on the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 candidate vaccine. The university and its pharmaceutical partner, AtraZeneca, said they were seeking regulatory approval for the vaccine after it showed an average 70 per cent effectiveness. Photograph: JOHN CAIRNS/University of Oxford/AFP via Getty Images

The coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford university and AstraZeneca has shown greater than expected efficacy, with Ireland in line for four million doses of the vaccine as part of an advance purchase deal with the EU, if it secures regualtory approval.

Irish workers are wildly underestimating the amount they need to save for a modest pension income, according to a new survey by Royal London. Dominic Coyle reports on the glum findings.

US investment group Elliott Management is not in a position to mount a hostile bid for Aryzta, as it needs the bakery group's board to help line up a deal on its €1.2 billion in debts, which would fall due immediately under a change of control. Joe Brennan has the details on the latest development in this Aryzta saga.

On Monday, ratings agency Moody's issued a gloomy report on how housing affordability will be impacted across Europe due to Covid-19. As Cantillon notes, this will merely exacerbate the State's decade-long housing woes.

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In personal finance, Fiona Reddan looks at ways to gift your child a house deposit.

In Q&A, a reader enquires about applying for the Fair Deal scheme for nursing home care, against the backdrop of her son putting her elderly husband under pressure to sign over a plot of land to him. Dominic Coyle offers some advice on this sensitive subject.

In media and marketing, Laura Slattery looks at Rupert Murdoch's recent difficulties in Australia and how Donald Trump's defeat might impact on his Fox News network in the US.

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Ciarán Hancock

Ciarán Hancock

Ciarán Hancock is Business Editor of The Irish Times