Stuart Fitzgerald

Small businesses across the country are facing an existential crisis on many fronts, including state-induced higher costs. Modelling the latest Government announcements on PRSI and grants shows they don't go far enough.

The first quarter saw trade pick up in some sectors and slow down in others. Declining inflation is welcome, but company failures are on the rise.

Government policies driving up labour costs provide welcome levelling up for vulnerable workers. When small businesses can’t afford them, the State could simply pick up the tab.

In the second of a two-part series, Stuart Fitzgerald says analysis of data from typical Irish pharmacy, grocery, restaurant and pub businesses shows that SMEs’ viability is under increasing strain — and is set to get worse.

Stuart Fitzgerald’s accountancy firm Fitzgerald Power is seven months into a project to reduce the company’s climate impact. It’s been slow progress but he feels that they are getting somewhere.

Rural Ireland is blighted with extensive commercial decay. There are scars everywhere. Input costs for businesses continue to rise and profit margins fall. Can the model survive rampant entshittification?

If you wanted to sell your business last year, you had to lower the price you were willing to accept. Here's the specifics of why company valuations fell.

It often feels like entrepreneurship is a constant cycle of building, preparing to build, and then building again. The momentum created by the current wave of rapid change will carry many businesses to greater heights. It will crush others.

Prudently managed growth is as important to a business as the strength of its balance sheet or the quality of its people. Removing growth imperils a company. If we aren’t continually investing in our businesses we risk being left behind.

Investment by an international consolidator is a welcome boost for prospective M&As and long-term investment in Irish pharmacies, but static revenue and rising costs are squeezing single-unit pharmacies and preventing the next generation of entrepreneurs from entering the sector.