Digital Skills Academy has launched a new initiative aimed at providing Irish businesses with a free website. Applications are being sought for the SFA National Small Business Awards 2011, which will take place in December. 01/09/2010: The Live Register of unemployment benefits claimants increased maginally through August to a new all-time high of 467,000 people Parcel carrier GLS Ireland has launched a new nationwide express delivery service. Activity in the Irish manufacturing sector continued to grow in August, but the pace of growth eased for the third consecutive month. 31/08/10: Ryanair has announced that it will close its Belfast City Airport service at the end of October due to the ongoing delay in the airport building a runway extension. Innovo Training & Development and the Institute of Technology Tallaght have launched a new Enterprise Evolution Programme (EEP). Irish workers remain motivated in the workplace, according to a survey by professional recruitment consultancy, Robert Walters. Cork companies are continuing to invest heavily in training for their employees, according to a recent survey carried out by Cork Chamber. Fingal Enterprise Board have this year decided to extend their Enterprise Day into a week long event, with a number of high profile business figures lined up to offer advice to entrepreneurs.

This Weeks Irish Business News

Google has confirmed the immediate creation of 200 new jobs in Ireland, with the establishment of a new operations centre in Dublin. Toyota Ireland has agreed a €5.75m three year extension to its sponsorship of Munster Rugby. The new deal will run until June 2013. TV3's autumn schedule has over 150 hours of new home-produced peak-time programming across all genres, and 40% of the station's will be home-produced, up from 20% three years ago. Bank of Scotland has announced that it is to exit the Irish market altogether after racking up an impairment charge of €2,950 million last year on its €29 billion Irish loan book NovaUCD-based software company SmartBuilder has launched Site Clean Up, an iPhone application to assist building firms of all sizes to clean-up their construction sites more efficiently and cost effectively. Institute of Technology Blanchardstown has launched a new competition offering entrepreneurs space in its LINC incubation centre and mentoring from industry experts for 12 months. Irish businesses who don't offer an online platform to sell their products could be missing out on considerable business. Over 40% of higher level maths students need grinds to cope with the demands of the subject, according to a survey by Engineers Ireland. Davy Stockbrokers John O'Reilly has predicted a looming global food crisis, due as much to the perception of the impact of global warming on crops as the reality. Entrepreneur Nualan O'Brien started her business without doing her homework. She survived the plunge but urges others to look before they leap Credit rating websites such as Creditsafe offer a quick and inexpensive way of knowing who you're doing business with There are many spread trading platforms and they're not all the same. Graeme McQueen reports on the counsel from MarketSpreads, Paddy Power Trader and CMC Markets Amid the excitement and buzz of starting up a new business, it's important to give some thought to what legal form the startup should take. The banks have got a bad press recently but their funding of the Social Finance Foundation has spawned scores of worthwhile micro enterprises Given Ireland's current economic circumstances, everyone on the state payroll and on the state drip is being paid way over the odds. The fact that tax revenues in Q2 were the same as in Q1 at least suggests that the economy has stabilised, but there is absolutely no evidence of growth. A genuine redundancy may be successfully challenged in the Employment Appeals Tribunal if the employer cannot prove fair procedures, writes Aoife Bradley Vodafone and O2 are to charge €20 per month for 3G data plans for the Apple iPad, which will be available for sale in Ireland from next week. Small businesses in Ireland are now waiting an average of 76 days to be paid, according to the ISME Credit Watch Survey for summer 2010. The European Commission has sanctioned the extension of the government's blanket guarantee of retail bank deposits from the end of December to 31 December 2010. Industry group Retail Excellence Ireland has warned that retailers will be under increasing pressure to stay in business over the coming months as rents are kept artificially high by banks transferring impaired property assets to NAMA. Sentient Management, led by corporate finance veteran Martin Cole, has issued a new guide to Management Buy-Outs which is designed to examine how MBOs are typically structured. A new industrial policy document from Fine Gael costed at €18 billion does not contain a single proposal to assist SMEs