By Business & Finance 
Business & Finance brings you the day’s Irish business news in brief.
Statement following the decision taken by ASTI members
Minister for Education Richard Bruton said there is opportunity to resolve the dispute with members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland.
The Minister has repeatedly expressed his belief that dialogue between his Department and ASTI is in the best interests of schools, parents, students and teachers. He has also expressed his willingness to extend the benefits of the recent agreement reached with TUI and INTO on new entrant pay to ASTI members in the context of the union’s cooperation with the Lansdowne Road Agreement. This agreement is worth €135,000 to a teacher over their career.
Furthermore, Bruton has also repeatedly offered that if ASTI suspends their directive on withdrawal from the Croke Park Hours while talks are taking place, the Department can in return suspend the implementation of measures associated with the union’s repudiation of the Lansdowne Road Agreement.
DCC acquires Hammer in deal worth €42.5m
International sales, marketing, distribution and business support services group DCC has announced that DCC Technology (which trades as Exertis) has agreed to acquire Hammer, a specialist distributor of server and storage solutions to resellers in the UK and Continental Europe.
Based in Basingstoke and employing 165 people, Hammer distributes server and storage products for a broad range of leading suppliers including Dell, Intel, NetApp, Seagate and Western Digital.
Tommy Breen, chief executive, DCC, said: “The acquisition of Hammer will significantly strengthen the product and service capability offered by Exertis to its reseller customers. In addition, Hammer’s expertise will better enable us to take advantage of positive industry trends, including growth in cloud data centres and demand for big data analytics.”
Electroroute agrees major new partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation
Leading Irish energy trading and services firm ElectroRoute and Mitsubishi Corporation have today announced a deal that will see Mitsubishi take a 60% stake in the Irish company.
The deal will allow ElectroRoute, which already trades across eight European markets, to continue to scale its operations internationally with the support of a company with a market capitalisation today in excess of €32bn.
ElectroRoute’s entire senior founding management team, including CEO Ronan Doherty, will remain with the firm as it continues its expansion with plans including the opening of its first offices outside of Ireland.
Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald meets EU partners to discuss migration crisis
The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald TD today concluded meetings with her EU colleagues where they discussed the migration crisis. The Tánaiste also had a brief introductory meeting with new UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd. They agreed to meet again in early November for discussions on bilateral
issues.
The Tánaiste said: “Ireland is playing its part in sharing the heavy humanitarian burden of the migration crisis. Ireland’s resettlement of refugees from outside the EU is ahead of target and Ireland’s humanitarian relocations of people from within the EU are gathering pace. Our naval service has rescued 13,400 people from the Mediterranean since May last year. Our service remains extremely active at sea.”
HP to cut up to 4,000 jobs over next three years
HP said it expects to cut about 3,000 to 4,000 jobs over the next three years.
4,000 staff are employed at the company’s base in Leixlip and there are now serious fears for these manufacturing, R&D, customer support and marketing positions.
Dion Weisler, chief executive, HP said: “Our core markets are challenged and macro economic conditions are in flux right now.”
CityJet receives ERA Airline of the Year award
CityJet has been named Airline of the Year (Silver) 2016 by the European Regions Airline Association – an organisation involved in all aspects of the sector, from carriers to airports operations and manufacturers. The announcement was made at the ERA General Assembly in Madrid last night. The award citation focused on the achievements of CityJet throughout 2015 in successfully rebuilding as an independent airline, including the significant growth in its traffic and transformation of its business model.
