Economy

Rorie Smith has been exploring the exotic multi-million pound smuggling rackets, from pigs to Mercedes and from grain to spare parts for lorries

ON 1ST JUNE Mr. Pearse Wyse, T.D., Minister for State at the Department of Finance, was pleased. Pleased to annnounce that Messrs. Cramptons would shortly be moving into the Great Hall of UCD in Earlsfort Terrace to convert it into a Concert Hall. Presumably Crampptons were pleased, too, since the conntract is reputedly for over a million pounds, and particularly because they built the original facade of Earlsfort Terrace in 1914. Nice to be back.

Kevin Myers reports on the Asbestos controversy in Ovens, Co. Cork

AIB, Bank of Ireland, Donal McAleese the IDA, Bord Bainne, Kerry Co-op and CRH's Scottish takeover

By unanimous agreement, unemployment is now the country's most daunting problem. Yet there are no reliable figures on the number of people out of work. Brendan Dowling unravels the bewildering statistical information and describes the dimension of the problem.

THE TECHNICIANS dispute in the Post Office has done the country and the Government one great service: by highlighting the gross deficiencies in the way the country's telecommunications service is managed, it has created the public climate in which the Government's election commitment to reform the Post Office can be speedily executed.

Here we examine the two major industrial disputes now afflicting the country. In the Aer Lingus dispute we analyse critically strikers "strategy, and in the P & T dispute we examine the underlying issues.

THE LOGISTICS involved in running a car ferry are quite simple. As passsengers are motorised, this gives the ferry operator total flexibility when choosing arrival and departure points. There is no necessity to link up major cities directly or even to consider a railway connection. by James Prufrock

THE CHANGES in farm taxation announced by George Colley in the February Budget, will not persuade the P A YE sector that farmers have been asked to contribute a fair share of government revenue. By ALAN MATTHEWS

THE FORD CAPRI has always attracted buyers with an unusual sense of priorities about what they want in a motor car - namely, appearance. According to market research carried out by Ford of Europe,styling is the key to maintaining the Capri's astonishing sales of 103m since the first model was introduced in Europe in 1969.