Business Briefs: N.Y. Lt. Governor Donohue to open IBO’s trade show

By Harry Keaney

The lieutenant governor of New York, Mary Donohue, will officially launch the Irish Business Organization’s fourth annual trade show on May 19 at 5 p.m. in the 200 Fifth Ave. Club at the International Toy Building in Manhattan.

Admission to the public is free and doors will open at 4.

More than 70 IBO members will stage exhibits at the show.

This year’s event has as its theme Irish and Irish-American women in business.

A special black-and-white photo exhibit entitled "A Prayer for my Daughter," from the Yeats poem of the same title, will feature a time-line of milestones in the work history of Irish and Irish-American women, and will document their many accomplishments, from the scullery room to the board room.

Beginning at 6 p.m. in The Oak Room, there will be a panel discussion entitled "The Celtic Tigress," which will profile six successful Irish and Irish-American women. The discussion will be moderated by Loretta Brennan Glucksman, president of Glucksman Ireland House.

The panelists are: Patrice Adcroft, editor in chief of Seventeen Magazine; Dr. Carmel Donovan, managing partner, Lenox Hill Radiology and Medical Imaging Associates; Claire Grimes, owner and president of the Irish Echo Newspaper; Julie Halpin, CEO, the Geppetto Group, and Claire O’Brien, partner, Shearman & Sterling.

More than 1,000 people attended last year’s trade show.

Excessive lending?

The central bank, Ireland’s equivalent of the federal reserve, has warned banks and lending societies that they are lending too much to mortgage borrowers and are fueling excessive increases in house prices.

IBO networking

An Irish Business Organization networking dinner will take place May 18 in Beckett’s, 78 Pearl St., between Broad and Hanover Square, in lower Manhattan. Becketts is owned by Ronan Downes, a member of the IBO from Dublin. Details, call Bernadette McManus at (212) 571-1150.

Jobs watch

The Irish mobile phone operator Esat Digifone will employ another 30 people in Limerick during the coming year, Tánaiste Mary Harney has announced. Digifone employs 650 people.

Harney also announced that Beacon Integrated Solutions will create 50 jobs at Limerick’s national technological park.

Women discouraged

Such is the boom in Ireland that the country now needs more workers. But, according to economist Dr. Dan McLaughlin, the two main factors inhibiting more married women from entering the workforce are the "ludicrously high top rate of tax at 46 percent and the lack of child care."

Meanwhile, the head of Dell’s European, Middle Eastern and African operations, Jan Gesmar Larsen, said skilled computer staff are becoming increasingly hard to find and training programs were unlikely to solve the problem in the short term. Larsen, at an Irish Management Institute conference in Kerry, told the Irish Times that his company was not currently experiencing skill shortages but there was some concern about the future.

"Like all other IT companies operating in Ireland, we have to live with the fact that there are limited resources in terms of staff," he said.

Dell is trying to retain staff by offering an attractive stock option scheme.

Warning

John Sculley, former chief executive of Apple Computers, has warned that Ireland needs to accelerate improving its infrastructure to cater to electronic commerce. Sculley, who was also at the Irish Management Institute’s conference in Kerry, told the Irish Independent that electronic commerce will be big market in the Europe Union but he added that high speed access to the internet was fundamental to success in e-commerce.

Sculley’s brother David is a former senior vice president of Heinz. He continues his association with former Heinz boss Tony O’Reilly through his seat on the board of Waterford Wedgwood, of which O’Reilly is chairman.

Now, listen to this . . .

Irish bank officials are seeking at least £2,000 each for working over the millennium bank holiday. This is double the figure sought by gárdaí, and sets a marker for other workers such as child minders, bar staff and air traffic controllers who will be in particular demand on Dec. 31.

In Chicago

In Chicago recently, trustees of the city’s Goodman Theater, artists and supporters gathered to celebrate the unveiling of plans for the Goodman Theatre Center, a new restaurant and retail complex developed by Friedman Properties, Ltd., to be located at the corner of Randolph and Dearborn streets, in the heart of the Windy City’s revitalized theater district.