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The results of the small employers’ group National Crime Survey found that crime cost businesses €1.5bn last year and owners were losing faith in the judiciary in the fight against crime.

The survey found that the direct costs of crime have risen 136pc since the start of the recession, resulting in an average cost of €9,760 to each business. When the cost of security is included the tally rises to €14,242.

Four out of 10 companies surveyed said they had been affected by crime in the past year, and most were repeat victims.

“The current business environment is tough enough without owner-managers also having to be concerned with rising crime levels and costs,” said ISME chief executive Mark Fielding. Read more

Spar South Africa, a publicly-quoted wholesaler and distributor, is to pay €55 million for an 80 per cent stake in the BWG Group, which owns the Spar brand in Ireland. The new partnership will have up to € 100 million to invest in the expansion of BWG’s wholesale and convenience retailing operations over the next five years, and the new joint venture will be owned 80 per cent by Spar South Africa and 20 per cent by Leo Crawford, John Clohisey and John O’Donnell.

The deal also secures a further reduction in BWG’s borrowings following a buyback of exiting banks’ debts. This further reduction in debt comes on top of that achieved as part of a successful refinancing concluded in November 2013, which also saw BWG agree new five year banking facilities. These facilities have been reaffirmed by BWG’s lenders as part of this transaction with Bank of Ireland and AIB increasing their commitment.

BWG, which has 421 Spar stores and an estimated 35 per cent share of the Irish convenience store market with turnover of about €1.2 billion, will continue to be led by group chief executive, Leo Crawford, and the existing management team and there will be no change to the structure or composition of the existing businesses. Read more

Facebook was in touch the other day. “Help your friends recognise you,” they wrote. “Add a profile picture.”

My instinctive reaction was: Why? So it could be added to the pile of data on me and others that is left out there for the unscrupulous to access?

Of course, my picture sits with this piece on the website, so that particular horse has probably bolted. However, we still work generally under the assumption that, in transacting business with reputable agencies or retailers, we are operating over secure networks. Events over the past week have thrown a harsh light on the fault lines in that assumption.

First it emerged that a Russian crime ring had collated the largest “known” collection of personal data stolen over the internet – including 1.2 billion username and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses. Read more

Consumer spending represents over 60% of the economy here and there are signs of recovery after seven years of decline in a row.

This is according to the Marketing Institute of Ireland and UCD’s Smurfit Graduate Business School.

Their consumer market monitor, which draws on a range of data from the CSO, the Central Bank, the ECB and the European Commission, puts consumer confidence at its highest level in seven years.

The authors of today’s report – which covers the second quarter of the year – said that the improving confidence has begun to feed through into consumer spending.

They noted a major turnaround in sales of new cars, while also reported much greater activity in the property sector with 28,500 house sales completed last year – an increase of 36% on 2012.

They also said that retail sales have shown more buoyancy this year, with sales volumes up 2.8% in the first quarter of 2014 compared to the same time the previous year.

Several retail categories have shown substantial growth including home furnishings which rose by 21%, while clothing and footwear sales increased by 9.1%. Read more

Business newswire Bloomberg reported yesterday that Paddy Power is offering odds of 9-to-4 that house prices will increase by between 15pc and 19.9pc this year.

A €4 winning bet would return a €9 profit, the report helpfully points out to the bond traders and banking analysts who subscribe to the service.

You know you’re in trouble once the novelty bets are being laid. 
Our home-grown experts have been quick to reassure the public that we aren’t back in a bubble, but an intervention by the head of KBC Bank here, Wim Verbraeken, might give some pause for thought.

With a foreigner’s instinct for stating the bleeding obvious the Belgian banker has suggested, ever so gently, that spiralling price rises should at least be “reason for concern”. Read more

In his statement yesterday, ECB President Mario Draghi showed little evidence of a change on policy.

What he ought to have said the council has had second thoughts: The changes in June were too timid, and since then the situation has only worsened.

Inflation in the euro zone is still falling. In the year to July, it was 0.4pc – yet again, less than private forecasters were expecting, and the lowest in more than four years.

The central bank’s target for inflation is “below but close to 2pc”. The ECB’s most recent projections have inflation undershooting this rate even at the end of 2016. This week, Germany’s 10-year break-even rate (a measure of inflation expectations) fell to 1.27pc, the lowest since 2012. It’s obvious the ECB’s monetary policy is too tight. Read more

Belgian Wim Verbraeken has also cast doubts on claims that that houses in Dublin in particular are “undervalued.”

Mr Wim Verbraeken, who took over as chief executive of KBC Bank Ireland in November last year, said a lack of homes available to buy in Dublin in particular is hitting the market, including creating a gap between the number of new home loans approved by the bank and actual number drawn down.

The squeeze on supply is seen as the main factor driving up house prices at a pace not seen even during the boom.

“When prices increase by 20pc I think it is a reason for concern, despite that being from a low base,” Mr Verbraeken told the Irish Independent.

And he questioned this week’s report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) that suggested Irish house prices are undervalued. Read more

There is also the harmless amusement to be gained from watching the unshakeable belief of so many that things will turn out the same. Not so harmless for them, mind you, if they invest their money on that belief – or plan their election campaigns.

The coalition, one hears, is determined not to repeat the mistakes of the 1997 campaign. Like the poet Wendy Cope, they will probably make a different one instead.

Right now, the surprise is seeing so much discussion of the property market being based on the events of ten years ago. One would have to have been watching for a lot longer than 35 years to have seen anything like the present set of circumstances. Centuries, in fact.

We owe it to the meticulous Dutch bureaucracy to learn that King Billy paid more for the money to fight the Battle of the Boyne than the Netherlands government would have done on borrowings made last week. Read more

Property prices are still undervalued despite the surges seen this year, the Economic and Social Research Institute said. It estimates that prices are set to increase by 6.5pc a year up to 2017. This means prices may surge by close to 20pc over the three-year period.

The ESRI has concluded that property will continue to increase in value until there is a huge rise in building output.

But it says we do not have a housing bubble, simply a shortage of supply in certain areas.

The most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office show prices jumping by 12.5pc across the State in June when compared with a year earlier.

In Dublin, prices were up 24.4pc on an annualised basis – twice the rate of increase in the rest of the country. Read more

The numbers at work will jump by 52,000 next year, with unemployment dropping below 10pc for the first time in six years.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has also predicted the economy will grow 3pc this year – much faster than the 2.1pc estimate from the Department of Finance.

Last night Tanaiste Joan Burton said that it was “quite possible” that the Government could hike its growth rate ahead of the Budget.

DP deficit in 2015 will require only a small amount of additional austerity measures, if any at all.”

It comes just a day after the latest Exchequer returns showed the State’s finances were more than €500m off target for the first seven months of the year. Read more