THE IRISH Motor Show is a lavish carfest which proves annually what everybody already knows: automobiles are fascinating. Like a sumpptuous banquet spread tantalisingly beyond Mr Everyman's reach, the machines stand in exotic, expensive rows, many of them unattainnable.
THE RESIGNATION of Tom Roche as an executive director from the board of Cement Roadstone Holdings marks the end of the story of 'how one man built up' Ireland's largest industrial enterprise from nothing. Roche was' a tough man but of course, he had to be to achieve what he did. That he has not lost: any of his ceaseless drive and enterprise is evident from' the many business activities he is now deeply involved in, the most notorious being Bula and, the most unusual being his plan to ,build a private enterprise bridge across the Liffey. By TOM ANDERSON
Guinness, Irish Steel, the Sunday World and Tony O'Reilly, the IDA, and the stock exchange
Betty Purcell analyses the development of the fishing industry and the current EEC fishing controversy
IN THE COURSE of 1977, Youghal Carpets (Holdings) has seen its stock market rating shot to ribbons. From a high of 80 1/2p early in the year, the share price fell to a low of 41p during the autumn - thus cutting market capitalisation by a massive £6.3 million. The one-time market favourite was discredited. By Sean Mitchell
UDT - From the way Willie Sandys (as in Braids) writes his chairman's report for U D T (Ireland), you would never think that this was a subsidiary of the second biggest U K finance house that was only saved from disaster by the 'lifeboat' the Bank of England launched in 1974.
IT IS EASY to understand why Fitzwilton should have attracted more attention than any of its imitators in Ireland. In the shell company pheenomenon in this country, Fitzwilton was by far the biggest. Its empire became so far-flung that the company is known well beyond these shores and, of course, it had the benefit of the golden aura of Tony O'Reilly to crown it all. But not that far behind Fitzwilton is another company, whose origin, structure and history is so similar as to make it almost an identiical twin. By James Prufrock
THE GOVERNMENT INDUSTRIAL AGENCY, FOIR TEO, HAS PUMPED 20 MILLION POUNDS INTO AILING COMPANIES OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS. TOM ANDERSON ASSESSES ITS PERFORMANCE
Our telephone service is a national sick joke. The postal service isn't much better. It's hard to open a newspaper without reading about another strike. Victorian attitudes to staff relations mean that things are going to get worse. By Liam O'Toole
A report on the background to the closure and on the secret dealings between a company and the government. By Vincent Browne, John Feeney and Howard Kinlay.