Irish Economy

Quarterly National Accounts data show strong investment growth drove a rebound in Modified Domestic Demand (MDD) in 2025, rising 4.9% for the year and 6.7% in Q4, marking a clear acceleration from 2024, largely driven by domestic construction and multinational-led investment, alongside gains in software and R&D. However, broader indicators point to moderating momentum, with slower jobs growth, weaker domestic sector output, and the Central Bank’s Business Cycle Indicator suggesting activity softened slightly from mid-2025.

Global Economy

According to Euromonitor, the global economy remains resilient, supported by easing inflation, accommodative policy and strong technology investment, though growth is set to ease slightly to 3.1% in 2026 amid ongoing trade and geopolitical uncertainty. Advanced economies face constrained growth while developing markets lead expansion, with moderating inflation providing support but persistent risks from tariffs, geopolitical tensions and structural pressures on prices.

Start-ups

Company start-ups rose 14% year-on-year in Q1 2026, driven by strong sectoral and regional growth, signalling continued entrepreneurial confidence despite a more cautious outlook reflected in declining commercial judgments and fewer first-time directors.

Housing Market

MyHome reports, Ireland’s housing market is showing moderating price growth, with asking price inflation easing to 4.7% amid affordability pressures and slower mortgage activity, though constrained supply and strong demand continue to sustain competition.

Irish GDP

Preliminary CSO figures indicate that GDP declined by 2.0% in Q1 2026, primarily driven by a contraction in the multinational-dominated industrial sector.

Fitzgerald Power is a leading financial advisor to the Irish SME sector. We provide accountancy, corporate finance and taxation advice to businesses across the country. We’d love to hear from you so please get in touch if you think we can help.

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In Fitzgerald Power’s interview series, we’re speaking to people with different perspectives who feel they can offer more to the workplace, from the water cooler all the way up to the C-Suite. Today, it’s Dr. Matt Kennedy, the Global Head of Client Transformation, from the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Ireland on how choosing sustainable practices within your business model does as much for your earnings as it does for the planet. 

Matt Kennedy has certainly been around the block. A chartered environmental professional and energy engineer with over 25 years’ experience in delivering national and international transformation and climate change initiatives, Kennedy has built a career in providing policy advice and thought leadership for clients, resulting in a global reputation. “The main functions I oversee are support to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) clients in Ireland, under the four briefs in my portfolio: R&D, Sustainability, Talents and Skills and Digital. It’s really about the existing clients within Ireland and helping them to transform; become more innovative, decarbonise, build more resilience in the business, and all the things that you’d expect.”

An internationally recognised expert when it comes to developing policy advice across governments and providing advice to businesses, we begin by asking him what the biggest hurdle is for those looking to integrate sustainable initiatives into their business. It tends to be more than one, he says. “What I would say is that there’s a real focus on decarbonisation,” he says. “Because there is a price on carbon, manufacturers can justify the financial investment – as they get the economic and environmental benefit – in addition to resilience across their business. Some challenges exist for services-type companies, whether FDI or indigenous, that don’t own their own buildings. So encouraging businesses to deliver adaptive measures and to deliver circularity measures can deliver value for all companies.”

Sustainability, in business terms, tends to be talked about in the wrong way. Most of the time, people apply a boundaried lens to it, considering merely the carbon footprints and/or recycling bins. Much of Kennedy’s job is about highlighting the bigger picture, such as resilience through a changing world, or creating a hospitable environment for FDI. “I’ve been in the sustainability business for 25 years,” he smiles. “And it’s been called different things throughout that time. At the moment, a major hook from the sustainability side is how companies link themselves to competitiveness and productivity, and become more sustainable in a way that delivers benefits and value to the business. You could argue that there’s always been a need for an economic driver as well as a social and environmental driver… But ultimately, at the moment, a lot of the focus now is on competitiveness as a narrative or a language or a buzz term, rather than social sustainability, ESG or compliance.”

So much has changed in recent years, he continues, that thankfully, more corporations than not are seeing the myriad benefits available to those thinking green. “A lot of the FDI clients in Ireland have climate pledges that are well in advance of what government pledges are. For example, Ireland, as a country, wants to be net zero by 2050, but a lot of the major FDI clients in Ireland want to be net zero by, say, 2042. So, you know, they’re very conscious that they need to report on their actions. Their shareholders are also expecting them to have sustainable operations, because it’s really good for their economic resilience. And I think that has really changed in the past 5-10 years. Back then, your sustainability officer was over on the left hand side of a business in an organisation structure. Now, an entire sustainability consideration is incorporated through the business and also providing economic value as well as upskilled employees.”

That said, there are challenges. “The main one being that some organisations don’t know where to start,” he says. “They’re also looking across their competitors to see what their competitors are doing, and sometimes they don’t want to be the first to move. So you have market challenges, return and investment challenges, but ultimately, those who are ambitious tend to embrace and deliver quite a large solution.”

Before the IDA, Kennedy worked at Arup, where he held the position of European Sustainable Development & Global Climate Strategy Leader, with previous experience from International Climate Consultancy, Tyndall National Institute and SEAI. Before that again, he was the lead EU negotiator at the Paris Agreement climate negotiations (COP21) and previously Chair of the UN Climate Technology Centre. “Nothing happens in the 10 or 14 days within COP,” he smiles. “I was responsible for technology transfer and trade, which ended up being Article 10 [of the Paris Agreement] for those really interested. And so the first thing about communicating across 27 Member States was to get clear agreement and lines. And that involves bringing people together, sharing what the red lines are and what lines of intersection are, and ultimately whether we could proceed.” A shrewd negotiator, much of Kennedy’s role focuses on communicating, often effectively, difficult subjects to global bodies. His best tip when it comes to effective communication? Leaving out the element of surprise. “The most important thing from the EU position, in advance of COP 21 in Paris, was to communicate to other regions what the EU position was, so that it didn’t become a surprise when you landed. That strategy bore great fruit because the EU then built alliances with like-minded regions that have the same goals. So rather than, you know, in a very strict poker game – our prisoner’s dilemma, as the negotiations are often called – the EU position was very frank and very clear from the start, especially around intellectual property, innovation and the importance of investment within southern hemisphere countries. You never really know who shares your ideals without expressing them in advance.

And that then led us to build great alliances with African states, Asian states, Latin American states, etc.”

While becoming a sustainable business isn’t a matter of just flipping a switch, it is worth the effort – particularly considering that consumers are increasingly aware of the impact of what they choose, buy and throw away. According to a 2020 McKinsey survey, up to 70% of respondents said they’d pay more for a product with sustainable packaging, and that number is only going one way. Kennedy, an eternal optimist, insists everyone has a part to play. “There’s a role for every sector,” he says. “That’s the first thing in terms of sustainability. Looking back, while environmental NGOs have had a strong stance on environmental integrity, it was corporations, including B-Corps, in the 80s that really pushed this forward. Now there may be scepticism, but ultimately, because of the major emissions that have occurred in the last 30 years, corporations now need to own and be responsible for their past and future emissions. Today, there is a significant role for corporations in avoiding greenwashing and gaining clarity on measurement and reporting for their transparency and accountability regarding emissions. We have come a long way in the last five years in terms of those standards, and mainstreaming those standards has become really important.”

Is it too late to start now? “I’m forever an optimist,” he says. “But time is of the essence. You know the decisions you make now in terms of infrastructure, fossil fuel infrastructure, and low carbon, will last for 30-40+ years. So we are running out of time to maintain targets for emissions reductions and broader greenhouse gas emissions, but we will not get there without action from industry. We will not get there without research informing our science from academia. And we will not get there without environmental organisations being the watchdog for such corporations to make sure that they act responsibly and are accountable for their own emissions reduction. Yeah, so everyone plays a role. I’d like to see it happening a little faster… but sometimes these corporations are very big ships. It takes a while for them to turn in the right direction.”

For more information on Dr Matt Kennedy’s work, check out his website here – https://matthewkennedy.org/.

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The latest Tax Pulse report highlights the most important tax developments impacting Irish businesses in 2026. From VAT reform to compliance trends, here’s what you need to know.

1. Strong Tax Performance and Increased Compliance

Ireland recorded €106 billion in tax receipts in 2025, alongside high levels of voluntary compliance and over 290,000 Revenue interventions.

Takeaway: Expect continued focus on compliance and targeted audits.

2. VAT Modernisation and eInvoicing

Mandatory eInvoicing and real-time reporting are on the way, with large businesses required to comply from November 2028.

Takeaway: Start preparing systems now to avoid disruption.

3. Changes to VAT Grouping Rules

VAT grouping is now limited to Irish entities, potentially bringing cross-border transactions into scope for VAT.

Takeaway: Review structures before the December 2026 transition deadline.

4. iXBRL Filing Update

From January 2026, only final signed financial statements will be accepted for iXBRL submissions.

Takeaway: Ensure accounts are completed within required timelines.

5. Revenue Updates and Key Deadlines

• Extended Pay & File deadline to 18 November 2026
• Incentives for energy-efficient investment extended to 2030
• Key tax deadlines across April–June 2026

Takeaway: Plan ahead to stay compliant and maximise available reliefs.

The direction is clear – greater digitalisation, tighter rules, and more active enforcement. Early preparation will put your business in the strongest position to adapt and stay compliant.

At Fitzgerald Power, we’re committed to delivering practical guidance that makes tax easier to understand and act on. Tax Pulse is designed to give you quick, clear insights so you can make confident decisions and stay compliant without the stress.

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At first glance, the price of a coffee might seem trivial. But when tracked consistently across global cities, it becomes a useful and relatable indicator of discretionary spending and cost-of-living pressures.

Introducing the Latte Index: Fitzgerald Power’s quarterly snapshot of the price of a standard Starbucks latte across key international cities, converted into euro using ECB exchange rates.

While simple in concept, the index offers a lens into broader economic dynamics: wage levels, rent pressures, currency movements, and, importantly, consumer tolerance for rising prices.

Q1 2026 Snapshot

In Q1 2026, London ranks as the most expensive city for a latte at €5.93, followed closely by Dublin (€5.65) and New York (€5.60). At the other end of the spectrum, Tokyo remains significantly more affordable at €3.48.

This spread highlights more than just pricing differences, it reflects structural cost variations across economies.

Dublin: Converging with High-Cost Cities

Dublin’s position is particularly notable.

Despite being a smaller market than London or New York, Dublin’s latte price sits firmly within the top tier. This suggests that cost pressures in the Irish economy are aligning with those seen in larger global cities.

Key drivers include:

• Persistently high commercial rents
• Rising wage expectations in hospitality
• Strong urban demand supporting premium pricing

In effect, Dublin is behaving like a high-cost global city — without necessarily having the same scale advantages.

The Role of Currency and Local Cost Structures

Currency movements also play a role.

For example, New York appears marginally cheaper than Dublin in euro terms, partly due to exchange rate effects. However, underlying local costs, particularly labour, remain high.

Similarly, Tokyo’s lower price point reflects both a weaker yen and a fundamentally different cost structure, where wages and rents remain comparatively subdued.

Consumer Behaviour: A Tipping Point?

Perhaps the most important insight from the Latte Index is not the price itself, but what it signals about consumer behaviour.

Across many developed economies, consumers have absorbed sustained increases in everyday costs — from coffee to energy. However, there are signs that this tolerance is being tested.

Recent protests linked to rising living costs and energy prices highlight a growing sensitivity to affordability. While a latte is a small discretionary purchase, it sits within a broader basket of spending that households are increasingly scrutinising.

The question is no longer whether prices can rise, but how far they can rise before behaviour changes.

Why It Matters

The Latte Index is not intended to be a definitive economic measure. Rather, it complements traditional indicators by grounding macroeconomic trends in something tangible and widely understood.

It provides:

• A relatable benchmark for discretionary spending.
• A comparative view across international markets.
• An early signal of pressure points in consumer affordability.

Looking Ahead

Fitzgerald Power will track the Latte Index on a quarterly basis, building a clearer picture of how consumer prices evolve over time — and what that means for businesses operating in Ireland and beyond.

Because sometimes, the most meaningful economic insights aren’t found in complex models…

…but in the price of your morning coffee.

The post The Latte Index: What a Coffee Tells Us About the Global Economy appeared first on Fitzgerald Power.

Funding Pulse is our quarterly report on the key trends shaping SME funding across Ireland. Compiled in partnership with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), it offers a clear, grounded view of how the funding landscape is evolving.

Our second edition, Q4 2025, is here – providing a timely end-of-year perspective. It highlights a more cautious lending environment, with borrowing softening and costs edging higher, while strong deposit growth and continued capital markets activity point to well-capitalised businesses taking a more measured approach.

Here are three highlights from the report:

• Lending slows as caution sets in. SME lending eased in Q4, with €1.03bn advanced during the quarter and total outstanding credit falling to €15.7bn – continuing the downward trend through 2025.
• Cost of funding ticks upward. The average interest rate on new SME loans rose to 5.3%, up from the previous quarter and reflecting tighter funding conditions.
• Capital markets remain highly active. Over €6bn was raised in Q4, driven largely by debt issuance, alongside continued momentum in sectors such as energy, aviation and life sciences.

For more detail on these trends, and the full breakdown across lending, deposits, venture and M&A activity, you can read the complete report here.

Whether you’re running a growing business, funding one, or advising those who do, Funding Pulse is built to give you clarity and confidence as you plan what’s next.

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In Fitzgerald Power’s interview series, we’re speaking to people with different perspectives who feel they can offer more to the workplace, from the water cooler all the way up to the C-Suite. Today, it’s Orla Hennelly of Ireland’s premier beauty hack destination, ItsBeautyCheats.

Becoming an entrepreneur, for Orla Hennelly, kind of came out of the blue. “I always loved fashion, and I wanted to work in it, so I ended up doing Communications in DCU, because I thought I wanted to do fashion journalism,” she says. “But that was a long time ago.” Looking back, it was actually through her time in retail that she first realised a penchant for figuring out how the sausage gets made. “I used to like seeing what was coming in and thinking about what would sell and what wouldn’t, so, from there, I realised I wanted to work further back in the supply chain.” She enrolled in a Master’s in Fashion Buying and Management, and from that, got an internship in Dunnes Stores’ Buying Department, where she stayed for seven years. “I loved it, I loved buying things, designing products and seeing them come to life.”

It was around that time that Hennelly was making the professional personal, by choosing the outfit she’d wear for her own wedding. “I really wanted to wear these heavy, vintage earrings for my wedding, but I hated how they were dragging down my earlobes, so I thought, why isn’t there a product that solves this issue?” With a quick Google to see that no such product existed in the Irish marketplace, ItsBeautyCheats was born in November 2023, with a chunk of Hennelly’s own savings and a desire to fix problems for women with similar needs. “In terms of actually launching the business, it wasn’t a hugely expensive product for my first, so I took money out of my savings, and I just thought to myself that if this doesn’t work, whatever. I’ll wrap it up.” Now three years later, ItsBeautyCheats is stocked in Arnotts, One Dame Lane, Ór Jewellery and a suite of pharmacies. Not to mention, it closed 2025 with 100% revenue growth YOY. “It’s going well,” she smiles, bashfully. “Ups and downs, but good overall.”

ItsBeautyCheats bills itself as the ultimate beauty-hack destination and the home of LobeLifts, the innovative earlobe protection patch that prevents earlobe stretching and tearing from heavy earrings. Their products seek to address a range of beauty-related grievances, from necklaces that don’t tangle to discreet, comfortable body tape. Once the success of LobeLifts, the business’s original name, took off – by way of Hennelly’s own marketing and a bit of luck with TikTok virality – eight months later, the business took on its current moniker. “I built the website myself. I kept costs really low, and suddenly I had this niche product that was doing really well,” she says. “As a result, I had to lean into the randomness of it all, and then started listening to consumers who had other beauty-related problems that needed fixing. To this day, I take all my ideas and theirs down in the Notes app on my phone.”

A business penned as a discrete problem solver proved enough to impress the Pitch team at Arnotts – a business accelerator initiative from Arnotts, created to empower innovative start-ups and entrepreneurs based in Ireland or Northern Ireland – and indeed the women of Ireland, many of whom thank Hennelly regularly for catering to needs in a way no one had before. “I remember coming home from a wedding with a friend and helping her take this body tape off, which was literally ripping her skin,” Hennelly says. “I just thought to myself, there has to be a better version of this.” ItsBeautyCheats’ subsequent body tape, priced at €18.95, includes 5 oil-based removal wipes for effortless, skin-friendly removal, and is now one of the brand’s best-sellers. “I’m fortunate enough that every product is close to best-seller status at the moment,” she says. “It feels like whichever one I push the most becomes the best seller, and I’ve had to restock everything. Like, there hasn’t been one product that I haven’t had to purchase multiple times, so it’s been brilliant. What I really love to see, though, is when someone buys one thing and within a matter of weeks they buy another for their friends.”

With just Hennelly at the helm, aside from the occasional contractor, her job spans a multitude: from the back-of-house – quality control, market research, customer service, to the front – courier, social media, marketing. “My family is great,” she says. “My brother has been packing orders, and my husband drives around the place delivering stock. I’m hoping to take someone on soon, but until then, it’s just me.” It seems ludicrous, then, that among her biggest competitors is Amazon. “I do think the people who follow my story and my social media accounts are willing to buy Irish over Amazon,” she says. “It is tough to compare, though, especially with shipping. Like, I ship with An Post, and it randomly went from €5.95 to €6.95 last month, which was huge. For my products that are €12.95, asking for €6.95 shipping is huge, so I didn’t put it up, I’m just taking the hit on that euro.” In times of panic, Hennelly turns to other female entrepreneurs in the business for help. “I can’t get over the support from women in particular,” she says. “I say this all the time, from the influencers and micro-influencers I work with, to those who run pharmacies and helped me get it in stock, to anyone going through the same thing. I had a disaster with a TikTok Shop video two weeks ago, and I wrote to so many other women business owners, and they couldn’t have been more helpful. Then customers with reviews and comments… My biggest takeaway is that Irish women are incredibly supportive all around.”

Today’s SME landscape is undeniably difficult, and despite a wealth of available resources out there – like Enterprise Ireland’s Going for Growth, the programme for ambitious female entrepreneurs across all sectors in Ireland that Hennelly is currently enrolled in – many continue to face significant operational challenges. “The number one thing for me at the moment is just trying to find the time to do everything before I can afford to hire someone,” she says. “I’m lecturing in Buying and Merchandising at the Portobello Institute two days a week to help pay the bills, we have a 10-month-old at home, and my husband works full time, so it’s just finding the time. Apart from that, I would also say it’s hard to get funding. I’ve been working with the local Enterprise Office, which has been great, but it’s just the cash flow issue that is really difficult. I would love to inject a load of cash into the business, and I know it would come back, but just getting it that’s the issue.”

Just last month, Hennelly announced that ItsBeautyCheats closed 2025 with 100% revenue growth YOY and tripled their online sales. How has that informed Orla’s vision for 2026? “I would say, year one, I didn’t have much wholesale at all,” she says. “Year two, I really pushed the wholesale aspect, and that was kind of increasing the revenue. Underneath that, profit wasn’t a 100% increase, so this year, I’m back to pushing direct-to-consumer sales. The wholesale is brilliant, and obviously, I won’t give that up, but to be honest, the big push for me now is back to the consumers and getting them directly to the website, because the dream is to be the number one beauty hack destination online, competing with the likes of Look Fantastic. But my own products that people come back to because they’re reliable, high quality, and they know their work.”

You can follow Orla and ItsBeautyCheats on Instagram here or on the brand’s official website. 

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The central thesis is very simple. The lives of men have been taken to represent the lives of humans overall and as a result most of recorded human history is one large data gap. When it comes to the other half of humanity, the silence is often deafening. This absence of data – the failure to count, measure, and analyse the female experience – is what Perez calls the gender data gap.

If you want to understand inequality in modern society, you could do worse than starting here.

I have three smart, thoughtful children – two daughters and a son. And like most parents, I hope they all get the chance to reach their potential

But it seems unfair to think that the world is likely to provide my son with unfettered access to opportunity because he is a white male, while my daughters may have to fight for their place in it. Yet the data suggests precisely that.

Here are a few takeaways that struck me.

The Male Default

Women make up half the population, yet the female perspective is routinely treated as niche. The “default human” across medicine, economics, urban planning and technology is male – often white and middle-class. Everything else is a deviation.

The inequalities that result are not always the product of malice. Or as Perez puts it; “One of the most important things to say about the gender data gap is that it is not generally malicious, or even deliberate. Quite the opposite. It is simply the product of a way of thinking that has been around for millennia and is therefore a kind of not thinking. A double not thinking, even: men go without saying, and women don’t get said at all. Because when we say human, on the whole, we mean man.”

She cites an example where Google’s image-recognition software labelled a portly, balding, middle-aged man standing in front of a kitchen stove as “female”. Kitchens, it would seem, are a more powerful indication of gender than male-pattern baldness.

When the data is skewed, so are the conclusions.

Equality Is an Economic Issue

We often frame gender equality as a moral issue. Which it is, but it is also an economic problem.

When half the population is underrepresented in decision-making, the resulting policies, products and processes are less efficient. Markets are misread, talent is misallocated, and productivity is constrained.

Women do the vast majority of unpaid work globally – childcare, eldercare, housework. Much of the value that this work creates is invisible. But it has a value.

We tend to value what we can measure. It’s just easier.

But here’s one we can definitely measure. Women are more likely to have career breaks, so their chronological age is often older than their academic or professional age. Promotion systems and tenure clocks often fail to account for this. And that’s before you start to consider how difficult it is to re-enter the workforce after a sustained absence.

Representation Matters

In politics, balanced representation leads to more balanced legislation. When women enter legislatures in meaningful numbers, policy priorities shift – often towards health, education and social welfare.

The use of all-women shortlists by the UK Labour Party dramatically increased the number of female MPs over time. Representation changed because the mechanism for selecting candidates changed.

Contrast this approach with commentary during the 2016 US presidential election campaign where some voters suggested that Hillary Clinton was too ambitious. Running for the most powerful political office in the world undoubtedly requires ambition. Yet a reality television star with no political experience wasn’t criticised for the same trait. The difference was not ambition it was social norm violation. We associate leadership with men, and through this lens Trump was a better fit. Although history is unlikely to record it as such.

Closing the Gap

Perez’s solution is to close the representation gap, increase female participation in all spheres of life and collect gender-disaggregated data. Then analyse the data and act on it.

As more women move into positions of influence, different questions get asked. Gaps in previously held universal truths are exposed, and new ways of thinking are developed.

Sigmund Freud once posed a riddle about femininity.

“The great question,” he said, “that has never been answered, and which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is: What does a woman want?”

The answer, as Perez points out, was staring us in the face all along.

All “people” had to do was ask women.

The post Half the population, half the data? Understanding the Gender Data Gap appeared first on Fitzgerald Power.

Noel starts by asking Peter to give a brief overview of Financefair’s decade supporting Irish SMEs as the funding landscape continues to evolve rapidly.

Noel Winters (NW):

2025 was Financefair’s tenth year in business, congratulations! Tell me about Financefair’s early days, and journey over the past ten years.

Peter Brady (PB):

Thanks very much, Noel. Last September we marked our ten-year anniversary. Ff started by solving a very simple problem – post GFC lots of great businesses were being underserved by traditional banks, it was easier for Banks to say no rather than look at how they could support their growth. My Co-Founder, Helen Cahill, spent her career on the Treasury side of banking helping SMEs manage FX & interest rate risk – my background was in Finance – but from the other side of the fence. So, we had both seen first-hand how good businesses struggled to access growth funding. That was the genesis what was then called InvoiceFair a Platform that connected SMEs with institutional capital via Technology. We began with a single product: single invoice funding. From my previous experience using invoice discounting with banks, I understood the restrictions around concentration and geographies. If a business had a small number of large customers, or customers overseas banks often restricted funding. We took a different approach and focused on funding individual invoices instead of the entire debtor book. That reduced friction for businesses and gave them access to more flexible and larger amounts of funding.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve evolved significantly – diversified our funding base, innovated our product offering, leveraged the power of data in underwriting and monitoring and built institutional-grade risk processes.

NW:

From being in business ten years and looking at SME Ireland daily, what differences are you seeing in SME Ireland over that period, and what are the main challenges that you are seeing for business owners?

PB:

One of the main things that has changed is how businesses generate revenue. Previously, businesses relied heavily on invoicing and waiting for payment. Now, many businesses have shifted towards predictable recurring revenue models. . These provide more certainty and predictability and ultimately drive more value in the long term.

The growth of technology businesses has accelerated this shift. Many modern businesses don’t have physical assets to pledge the ones that banks traditionally lend against. Lending has become more focused on cash flow and revenue generation rather than physical collateral. For Funders like us, this means understanding the drivers behind revenue and understanding, early on, how the business works. Our products developed as this landscape evolved where businesses shifted towards recurring revenue models and scaling business in sectors that were asset-light but growing quickly.

NW:

And that leads us on to due diligence. Describe the typical due diligence process for Financefair. What kind of data points do you examine before extending credit?

PB:

An important part for us is the use of technology and data tools to get as much information as early as possible before you have a discovery call with the clients. The most crucial part of the call, however, is understanding how the business works. How does the company generate revenues ? How will the company be profitable? How will the company grow their business, what are the levers and do the management team have the capability to deliver that growth?

Once we understand the business model and the management team and we identify the risks and mitigants, we then use technology to access financial data. This includes read-only financial integrations – open and accounting banking data along with credit rating agency data. Open banking data has been a game changer for us because it gives real time visibility into cash flow, which is critical for assessing and monitoring risk. We also analyse the context behind financial metrics. For example, a balance sheet item might look negative, but on review could represent quasi-equity rather than debt.

NW:

From my experience, pillar banks use traditional metrics such as a three-year track record when assessing businesses. That track record is not there for early-stage businesses. What do you look at in those scenarios?

PB:

For early-stage businesses, we focus heavily on clarity of the business plan, quality information and operations readiness. Then we look at customers – the most important asset a company has, and banks often overlook this. We look at customer quality and mix , sales pipeline, conversion timelines, and the strength of uniqueness of the value proposition strength.

For revenue-based finance, we typically fund based on predictable recurring revenue. Funding increases as revenue grows, which reduces risk and aligns funding with business performance. It’s all about landing those early customers and having total focus on the revenue number month on month.

NW: The term ‘alternative lending’ is often used to describe the type of finance that Financefair provides, what does this mean?

PB:

Alternative lending is generally understood as non-bank lending. It is typically faster and more flexible than traditional bank funding. From our perspective, it gives access to diversified funding. The advantage of that is you’re able to take on board different risks; banks usually lend from their own balance sheet, which limits risk. In our model, we can match different risks with different funding sources and spread that risk across multiple funders. This diversification allows us to support businesses that may not fit traditional lending models. Ireland has a structural gap in SME funding due to limited banking competition. Data-driven lending and diversified funding sources help to address that gap.

NW:

Financefair’s model is gearing towards relatively early stage and scaling businesses, therefore, a riskier profile of lending. Do you experience much default within your portfolio?

PB:

I’d love to say, no, we get everything right. Our default rate has been very low, typically below 0.5%. This is not because we’re brilliant at underwriting. It’s all about the relationship and the understanding of KPIs in each of those businesses, which signal performance changes early. These might include customer churn, return on advertising spend, or operational metrics. For example, I worked with someone in manufacturing who tracked waste by how often they replaced scrap bins. That single metric gave them early visibility into production issues. So, that’s how we manage those types of risks. It’s all about openness and transparency.

We monitor a small number of meaningful KPIs for each business. This allows early intervention if performance begins to change. The strength of the balance sheet is not why a business fails. Good businesses fail only for one reason: they run out of cash. Understanding cash flow and business drivers is critical to managing risk.

NW:

Are you seeing any trends developing in any sectors regarding credit appetite?

PB:

I see a lot of Irish businesses in the data centre space that are doing well in the Nordics and Northern Europe. There’s a lot of growth in that area. The credit underwriting is very different from what’s typical in Ireland, because there are a lot of other risks in those countries such as very strong unions. You need to make sure you’re on side with union agreements, deductions and pay rates. That’s something you must be able to get access to and to be able to underwrite.

Irish businesses are becoming increasingly international, particularly in sectors like technology, data infrastructure and MedTech. We have funded a lot of companies that got traction in the US so it will be very interesting to see what happens now in the US market during the Trump regime.

NW:

Have you seen any changes in that environment?

PB:

The only changes we’ve seen were the introduction of tariffs at an early stage. It was interesting for us from a risk perspective. You can look at your portfolio and think there’s no problem there, but you really need to understand the supply chain and the impact of tariffs, and you need to understand how easy it is for them to disintegrate. Can you easily move somewhere else where tariffs might be lower? This is something we are much more aware of.

NW:

What does the future hold for Financefair?

PB:

Our primary focus is on growth and on broadening and deepening our funding mix so that its competitive, but also flexible – enabling us to meet the needs of scaling businesses in 2026. We’ve recently added two European banks, and we have a lot of institutional funding on the platform as well. As we scale, we can support large and more price sensitive SME requirements.

We also want to continue providing fit-for-purpose funding. Traditional funding products have not changed significantly over time. Our focus is on adapting funding to match modern business models and revenue structures.

NW:

If you were to offer one piece of advice to someone starting their scaling journey, what would that be?

PB:

I think the most important thing is to focus on business growth rather than fundraising. I’ve seen young, smart entrepreneurs focus too heavily on raising large amounts of funding early when what they should be doing is looking to get a funding line that is directly related to their growth.

When businesses focus on building revenue and profitability first, they often make better decisions. They also retain more ownership when they eventually raise equity funding, because their valuation is higher.

Fundraising is a huge diversion of time and it’s not what a business starting out should be concentrating on. It’s about getting your message, your products and your channels in place.

Until next time.

Financefair was founded by Helen and Peter, combining deep experience from both sides of the funding challenge to solve one of the biggest problems facing growing businesses: access to working capital. Frustrated by how often potential was being held back by inflexible funding, they set out to build something better. For more information, go to Financefair’s website here.

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Irish Economy

Quarterly National Accounts data shows Modified Domestic Demand (MDD) growth accelerated through Q3 2025, rising 5.1% year-on-year, driven largely by a sharp increase in multinational investment. A 42% surge in investment in modified intangibles and higher aircraft investment boosted MDD, while consumption growth remained modest. For the first three quarters of 2025, MDD grew by 4.1%, outpacing other indicators of domestic activity. Employment, domestic sector output, and the Central Bank’s Business Cycle Indicator point to slower underlying growth, highlighting the one-off nature of recent investment-driven gains.

Global Economy

The global economy remains resilient, supported by easing inflation, lower interest rates and supply-chain adjustments, though elevated tariffs and policy uncertainty continue to weigh on the outlook. Euromonitor forecasts global GDP growth to moderate to 3.0% in 2026, with advanced economies slowing and emerging markets remaining relatively stronger despite trade headwinds. Global inflation is expected to ease further in 2026, with elevated pressures persisting in the US, near-target inflation in the Eurozone and continued deflationary forces in China.

Insolvencies

Based on PwC data, Irish corporate insolvencies remained well below expectations in 2025, with 848 cases recorded versus a projected 1,500, despite inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty. Retail and hospitality insolvencies declined year-on-year, while examinerships doubled, highlighting a shift toward court-protected restructuring. Rising unemployment remains a key risk for future insolvency trends, even as multinational activity continues to support overall economic stability.

Housing Market

MyHome reports, Ireland’s housing market entered a more measured phase as 2025 ended, with Q4 national asking price inflation steady at 5.4% and bidding levels easing from summer peaks. Despite tight supply, rising residential completions supported competitive market behaviour, and early indications suggested price growth would increasingly align with wages in 2026.

Irish GDP

Preliminary CSO figures indicate that Ireland’s GDP fell by 0.6% in Q4 2025 compared with Q3, primarily due to a contraction in the multinational-dominated industrial sector. The decline highlights the volatility in quarter-on-quarter economic activity driven by multinational firm performance.

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In Fitzgerald Power’s interview series, we’re speaking to people with different perspectives who feel they can offer more to the workplace, from the water cooler all the way up to the C-Suite. Today, it’s Colin Harmon, founder and CEO of 3fe Coffee.

Eighteen years ago, Colin Harmon took a pretty big gamble. He made the decision to quit his job as an investment broker, sell his car, and pursue his dream of opening a coffee shop. A hospitality stalwart since his teens – jobs like McDonald’s on Grafton Street funded Harmon’s third-level education – he decided that the finance life wasn’t for him. “Probably boredom,” he laughs, citing the reason behind it. “I got a job working in investment funds, working mainly with regulations, and I got two years into that and sort of felt like I needed out.” At the time, the finance world was booming. “There was lots of money in that industry,” he says. “And lots of safety, too. People would regularly leave their jobs to go travel to places like South East Asia or Australia, and then get a bonus to come back. Because that was on offer, I decided to leave my job and try to do something I wanted to do. I told myself that if I couldn’t figure it out after a year, then I’d take my old job back. Then, three months in, the economy collapsed.”

Nevertheless, he persisted. So much so that one year to the day after Harmon left his job, he came fourth in the World Barista Championships. (This was after he’d secured the national title, one he’s since won three other times.) “It was a bit mad,” he smiles. “One of the judges told me afterwards that I shouldn’t tell people that, because the guy who won it had, like, 30 years of experience. So I think they were like, we can’t let this guy win, he’s only been at it a year.” Dublin at the time had practically no coffee culture, something that became glaringly obvious at the event. “Other teams from say the US or UK had sponsors, as well as someone to organise the cups, another to organise the beans,” Harmon says. Conversely, he arrived with friends to take a chance. He left with an impressive final result and an understanding of the growing power of speciality coffee worldwide. “You had 4000 people in tiered seating cheering for cappuccinos, it was mad.”

Harmon was born in Cork City, but spent most of his life in the capital. At university, he accrued a Business and Law degree as well as Fund Investment, Tax and “a few other finance-based courses,” all of which came in handy for a start-up in the thick of a recession. Not to mention a coffee start-up in a nation of tea-drinkers. The first iteration of 3fe – named for the simulator he built from his third-floor apartment to practice for competitions – came in by way of Middle Abbey Street’s Twisted Pepper nightclub (now Wigwam) with a loan of €5000 from Harmon’s father and a promise to the owner that he’d pay rent when he made some cash. Business hardly boomed. “The first day I sold 16 cups of coffee,” he laughs. “There were days where I stood for eight hours and sold nothing.” Filter coffee at that stage was a hard sell; it was often only ever ordered by the city’s baristas, who were typically too busy with their own work to visit the premises week-on-week. Bit by bit, however, Harmon figured things out. “Honestly, that’s how I’m still doing this – figuring little bits out day by day.” A year and a half later, 3fe’s flagship space on Grand Canal Street opened. “We ran the two spaces concurrently for about six months, then sold our gear to the then-manager of Twisted Pepper, who now runs Vice coffee, and started roasting. Roasting seemed like a much more scalable thing to do, and today roasting is the bigger part of the business.”

Today, Dublin’s speciality coffee scene is vast and varied, a shift many credit to Harmon and his peers. “I don’t think people realise it, but for such a small city, Dublin’s scene is quite astounding,” he says. “Like, you don’t see this calibre of places in New York, which is mad to say.” Those behaviour shifts started modestly, he says. “I remember a bit of resistance,” he says. “There was this article in one of the papers about how much a cup of coffee was in different cafés, which is mad because you’d never do that for, say, a glass of wine. People know there are so many variables at play. But at that stage, trying to convince people the same for coffee – that it tastes different from different places and is a seasonal product – was a huge part of it.” The main reason he believes that behaviour change was successful? “Honestly… just being nice to people.” He likens this to an analogy of a bookstore. “If you’re into books and you go into a bookshop for a certain one, and the guy behind the counter rolls his eyes at your choice, chances are you’re not going to go back. Engaging people, and bringing them on a journey, and as much as I hate the term, educating people, was really important for us in the early days. Because we’d often come up against people who were like, I’ve been drinking coffee a certain way all my life, why would I change that? But honestly… being nice was the way to do it.”

Today, 3fe has eight shops, “about 80” staff and an 8500sqft roastery in Glasnevin. Last year, they roasted about 250 tonnes of coffee for products shipped worldwide. The company also runs a subscription service, an online shop and hosts a series of workshops on making the perfect brew. As a result of their expansion, the business’s biggest customer is actually themselves. But increasingly domestic and international businesses and clients – “loads of Irish people living abroad” – call on their beans for their morning pick-me-up. A lot of this can be linked to Harmon’s own intellectual acumen; people trust his brand to be good because they know he’s put in the hours. “It’s easy to open a food business,” he says. “The barrier to entry is quite low. But whether it’s pizza or wine or burgers, you want people to trust you. When people see you as an expert in that field, they’re more likely to gravitate towards you. I enjoy getting right into the heart of something and devoting myself to it, and being able to leverage that. I just don’t think you should be a big player in something if you’re not in it completely yourself.”

Much has been written about the difficulties of running an SME in Ireland of late. In hospitality, the difficulties are more pronounced still. 3fe, according to Harmon, is protected from some of the harder parts because they’ve managed to scale, but he sees peers time and again unable to protect themselves because “the government is creating an environment that is more suitable to larger companies.” “All of our staff are paid more than minimum wage, but when minimum wage goes up, there’s an expectation that all wages go up, and that affects everything we do. It means all the prices of coffee have to go up, and then that means people stop having three coffees a day, and they’ll start having one… or that kind of thing. It’s a lot of stealth factors that people don’t realise. Construction, pension contributions, and insurance costs are all going up, and all of these things don’t impact big businesses in the same way.”

The consequences of that are tenfold, Harmon insists. “Small businesses are huge employers,” he says. “And even if people don’t want to work in coffee shops their whole life, they’ve often developed the skills to become excellent marketing people or sales people from their time there. It’s a great sense of learning, and I think the government needs to do more, because the environment is becoming very, very inhospitable.” This consideration colours the advice Harmon gives today, particularly towards those who look at his career change and subsequent success with rose-tinted glasses. “I’ve been very lucky,” he admits. “I’ve worked hard, but I’ve also been lucky. I think it’s the Irish Times that love the stories of somebody giving up their job to pursue their passion, but sometimes, you’re better off just keeping your hobby. Like, if it goes wrong, you can end up with a job as your hobby, and then you start hating your job, and you’ve got no hobby. Don’t presume that just because you’re passionate about something that will be a successful business. If you find the time and figure it out, that’s brilliant. But, yeah, I think the perception is that just because it’s your passion, it would make a great business. And unfortunately, that isn’t always true.”

You can follow Colin Harmon can on Instagram @colinharmon and 3fe on @3fecoffee.

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