Chambers Ireland Weekly Digest: 3rd April 2018
*REMINDER* CSR Awards 2018 now open for applications
The CSR Awards 2018 are now open for applications!
Spread the word through your newsletters, website and social media and encourage your members to promote their best practice in CSR by entering the CSR Awards 2018.
Our website is now live with lots of helpful information for applicants including:
- Category Descriptions 2018
- Terms and Conditions for entry
- CSR Awards FAQs
- Tips on writing a great application
Click HERE for further information.
Closing date for applications is Tuesday 17th of April 2018.
Government officially opens applications for €300 million Brexit Loan Scheme for Irish Businesses
Last Wednesday, 28th of March at the Liffey Trust in Dublin’s inner city, Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creed TD and Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe TD opened the Brexit Loan Scheme for applications, a loan fund worth a total of €300 million provided by the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Business Enterprise and Innovation, and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s share of funding ensures that at least 40% of the fund will be available to food businesses.
The Scheme is open to eligible businesses with up to 499 employees and has the potential to benefit over 5,000 companies.
Should you have any questions about the scheme, please contact Chambers Ireland EU & International Affairs Manager Emma Kerins directly via her email address: emma.kerins@chambers.ie.
Irish Remote Interpreting Service (IRIS) – User friendly & cost-effective access to online Irish Sign Language Interpreting
The Sign Language Interpreting Service (SLIS) has developed a new approach to ensure organisations can provide services which are accessible to Deaf clients and comply with Equal Status/Disability legislation, as well as Consumer Protection Codes and customer charters.
This is the Irish Remote Interpreting Service (IRIS), which provides a live video-link to an Irish Sign Language interpreter for:
- Short meetings (30 minutes maximum)
- Information Enquiries
- Phone calls
- Form filling and more
IRIS is free and easy to set up, and costs €43 per 30-minute session with reduced rates for block bookings.
Using IRIS will improve service to your deaf clients and will help to extend the quality and reach of your organisation’s services.
IRIS is run by the SLIS and further details can be found on their website, www.slis.ie.
EU Green Public Procurement & GPP4Growth Project Updates
The EU’s Green Public Procurement and GPP4Growth projects have released several new updates for each project.
Please find the latest EU GPP News Alerts through the links below for February and March firstly:
Ecolabel Printed Paper Products
The EU have begun the revision process on EU-Ecolabels for printed paper products, following the official decision of the European Commission on the ecological criteria for awarding the EU Ecolabel for printed paper. You can find the legal text of this decision here.
Eco Procura Conference
The 10th edition of the Eco Procura Conference on Sustainable, Circular and Innovation Procurement will take place over the 3rd to the 5th of October in the City of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, the 2018 European Green Capital.
The conference is an opportunity to engage with procurers, policy makers, businesses, researchers and international organisations in the area of European policy developments related to procurement, procurement tools, best procurement practices and more.
Online registration will open in April 2018. See http://www.ecoprocura.eu/ for more details.
GPP4Growth
As part of the GPPR4Growth, different examples of good Green Public Procurement (GPP) practices from across Europe can be found at https://www.interregeurope.eu/gpp4growth/good-practices/
Some of the outputs of the research to date have been uploaded to the GPP page, which can be found here at https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/environment/topics/sustainable-development/green-public-procurement/Pages/GPP4-Growth.aspx
The Irish Times feature on waste in Ireland
The Irish Times recently ran a feature on waste in Ireland.
The article link can be found here: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/wasteful-ireland
Practicing good GPP can help reduce waste through better resource efficiency and some of the information found through the link may be useful to make a case for more sustainable procurement across your organisations.
InterTradeIreland Breakfast Briefings & Go2Tender
InterTradeIreland, in partnership with the Office of Government Procurement, Ibec, SFA, ISME, CIF and Chambers Ireland are delivering a series of breakfast workshops to educate and engage businesses on the island around public procurement, a market worth in the region of €12 billion per annum.
The next Breakfast Briefing is taking place on Wednesday, 11 April 2018 at Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone and is now available to register for by following this link.
We also encourage you to promote the forthcoming Breakfast Briefing in Athlone via your social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook.
*REMINDER* Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce – IACC Business Delegation to Australia
In June 2018, Chamber members and other Irish businesses will be offered the chance to join an Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce (IACC) Business Delegation to Australia.
This opportunity will coincide with Ireland’s Test Series against Australia, to which the IACC is pleased to offer not only a preview Corporate lunch a day before each game in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney but also specially priced Corporate Hospitality options at the games themselves, in partnership with Rugby Australia.
The delegation opportunity will take place from Wednesday the 6th to Friday the 22nd of June 2018 and will involve a full program of activities for participants.
For more information on joining the delegation, please contact the Irish Australian Chamber through their email address: office@australianchamber.ie.
Peninsula: Public Holiday Entitlements for ROI Workers
The latest informative supplement from Peninsula provides an overview of the statutory paid leave entitlements which include public holiday entitlements.
The supplement goes into detail on what entitlements full-time and part-time employees have for holidays, as a well as what compensation employees are entitled to should a public holiday fall on a Saturday.