{"id":507933,"date":"2026-06-19T13:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T13:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/507933\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T13:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T13:08:13","slug":"home-upgrade-loan-breaches-and-kpmg-and-the-impact-of-ai-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/507933\/","title":{"rendered":"Home upgrade loan breaches and KPMG and the impact of AI \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

About one in every 20 loans issued to date under the Government-backed home energy upgrade loan scheme (HEULS) to help households lower their carbon footprint and fuel bills has been found to be in breach of its terms<\/a>, according to sources.<\/p>\n

The two-year-old scheme, which has seen 1,135 loans to a combined value of \u20ac56.1 billion being drawn down to the end of March, is funded by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) through commercial banks. Joe Brennan has the details.<\/p>\n

It is far too early to say whether peace will hold in the Middle East, writes Ian Curran in Agenda<\/a>. It\u2019s not even certain that the current US administration is competent enough to resolve a Middle East crisis of its own making, one that has cost thousands of lives in the region and caused immeasurable harm to the global economy through higher energy prices and damaged oil and gas infrastructure.<\/p>\n

This is the landscape in which the Central Bank of Ireland published its latest forecasts for the Irish economy this week.<\/p>\n

Porter Priv\u00e9<\/a> has taken over management of three Dublin city centre serviced office spaces formerly operated by Paddy McKillen jnr\u2019s business Grafter<\/a>, including the building used by tech firm OpenAI <\/a>for its Dublin headquarters. <\/p>\n

The new venture set up by Emma Kennedy, who headed up Grafter until April of last year, now manages 41 Lower Leeson Street, 10 Ely Place and the building formerly occupied by Topshop on Grafton Street called Smyth House, which is used by OpenAI for its Dublin office. Killian Woods reports.<\/p>\n

\"\"Will a Middle East peace deal make any difference to inflation? <\/p>\n

Before Covid hit in March 2020, KPMG managing partner Ryan McCarthy tells Ciaran Hancock in our Friday interview<\/a>, staff attended the office on average 3.4 days a week, being off-site with clients the balance of the time. This figure is now running at 2.3 days a week. \u201cSo we\u2019ve lost a day [per week, in the office],\u201d he says, adding that graduates are expected to attend four days per week.<\/p>\n

From the autumn, he says KPMG will push for graduates to attend the office \u201call the time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the graduates are effectively in all the time, the managing teams need to be here all of the time, and the partners, too. I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s possible, but I would certainly like to get [the average] back to north of three days a week if I could.<\/p>\n

Karen Clince, the founder of Tigers Childcare, has been chosen as The Irish Times Business Person of the Month<\/a> for May, an award run in association with Bank of Ireland. <\/p>\n

This follows the sale of the group to UK operator Kids Planet Day Nurseries. Tigers operates 34 cr\u00e8ches across the State, mostly in Dublin and the surrounding commuter counties, catering to 3,200 children and employing 640 people. <\/p>\n

The temptation for the EU to start a trade war<\/a> to hit back at Chinese manipulation is strong, writes Alan Beattie in our Friday column, but this strikes him as an example of the politician\u2019s syllogism. (First premise: we must do something. Second premise: this is something. Conclusion: we must do this.)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the temptation to see the human brain<\/a> as a kind of machine has been around for a long time. Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, used to provocatively call humans \u201cmeat machines\u201d, writes Sarah O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n

So it is no surprise that some people at the forefront of AI now believe their models could soon become conscious. If the brain is akin to a computer, then why wouldn\u2019t a super-powerful computer develop consciousness too?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money<\/a>, the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About one in every 20 loans issued to date under the Government-backed home energy upgrade loan scheme (HEULS)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,8319,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-507933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-business-today","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}