Deanna O’Connor

Ireland

Writer and Editor at Freelance

Freelance Editor at Irish Times

Freelance Editor at Ashville Media Group

Diagonal thinker | Freelance Editor @IrishTimes Content Studio | Director @DingleLit 📚book festival

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Articles

Residential retrofits: how do the sums stack up for homeowners?

19 hours ago | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

Residential retrofitting is a key element of the Government’s Climate Action Plan, with a target of 500,000 homes to be retrofitted to a minimum B2 building energy rating (BER) by 2030. The benefits in terms of warmer homes and cheaper energy bills are obvious but the main barrier appears to be the high upfront cost. How do the sums stack up for householders?
Flexible working still ranks highly for employees when it comes to choosing a job

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

“I don’t want a free croissant – I want to work from home on a Monday.” So says Michelle (who doesn’t want her full name used), a disgruntled marketing executive who wasn’t overly impressed with her company’s back-to-office mandate and subsequent lacklustre efforts to make it a more inviting prospect for staff. Complementary pastries weren’t enough of an incentive to make her stay, and last year she joined many others who moved on in their droves from the multinational she had worked at.
From a small seed ... Simple ways to start investing responsibly

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

“There has been a notable surge in interest in responsible investing among clients in recent years,” says Adrian Godwin, co-founder and managing director of Oaktree Financial Services. “This trend stems from a heightened awareness of environmental, social and governance issues, alongside a growing desire to align investment strategies with personal values.
Valuing a business is part art and part science

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

“Rarely will two valuers arrive at the same value for a business,” says Stephen O’Flaherty, corporate finance partner with BDO. This subjectivity can have its roots in various reasons, from attitudes to risk to the weighting given to intangible factors. “At the most basic level, future earnings are the dominant metric used by most buyers when assessing the worth or value of a business,” says O’Flaherty.
Whiskey investing: Is there money to be made on the hard stuff?

Dec 4, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

According to GM Insights the global whiskey market is worth close to $70 billion (€66 billion) and forecast to hit $125 billion by 2032. The sector in Ireland has been growing in double-digit figures over the past decade. There’s cash in them thar casks ... but is whiskey really the liquid gold some would have you believe, or is it simply an expensive hobby that, if practised with care, might pay for itself?
Decarbonising the building sector supply chain is complex but not impossible

Oct 30, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

According to the World Economic Forum, the green transition of the building-sector value chain could unlock about $1.8 trillion in market opportunities. However, construction’s value chain is currently responsible for 37 per cent of carbon emissions globally. Reducing Scope 3 emissions – emissions that occur in the supply chain of an organisation – presents a complex challenge, given that such emissions emanate from activities beyond that organisation’s direct control.
Green building standards key to meeting sustainability benchmarks

Oct 30, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

Businesses and organisations are increasingly prioritising sustainable design, construction and maintenance of their premises, with globally recognised green building standards such as LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) and BREEAM (Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method) widely adopted to ensure they meet high sustainability benchmarks.
Top up your pension while you still can, but be mindful of Revenue rules

Oct 25, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

You may already have been building up your retirement nest egg through your workplace pension scheme, but if you feel like cushioning it with a little extra padding for more comfort, then it might be worth looking into additional voluntary contributions (AVCs). Or, if you’re nearing retirement and want to supercharge your pension to get the max out of it, you may want to consider topping it up with extra contributions while you still can.
Small companies have an edge when it comes to embedding a wellness culture

Oct 9, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

As any high-performance sports coach will tell you, getting results means taking a holistic view of mental and physical health. Likewise in the workplace, successful teams are led by people who understand the correlation between wellness and the workplace; they understand that when their staff are thriving, they are best placed to succeed professionally and stay with the company.
Nurturing a more diverse and inclusive society

Sep 18, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Deanna O’Connor

In Ireland today, diversity and inclusion are crucial as the nation grapples with the complexities of immigration and social integration. Research by ESRI and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission found that Irish people’s attitudes to immigration and migrants were impacted by recession and recovery; decreasing in 2008 with the onset of the recession and improving again as the economic outlook improved.