Ireland could offer itself as a home to some of Britain’s wealthiest residents if a Labour government was elected in the UK and followed through on threats to abolish a rule which allows some people to mitigate their UK tax liability, the Irish Times reported. Labour leader Ed Miliband has declared that, if elected in the forthcoming election, he would end the regime which allows those who are resident, but not domiciled in the UK, to avoid paying tax on their worldwide income.

Nervous investors drove safe-haven German Bund yields close to record lows on Wednesday, amid concern over Greece’s ability to resolve its debt crisis, a day before it must repay a loan to the International Monetary Fund, the Irish Times reported. Although cash-strapped Greece successfully sold €1.138 billionof six-month Treasury bills on Wednesday, doubts remain over its ability to find enough funds to repay all its debts in the coming weeks. Athens must roll over another €1 billion on April 15th.

Italy’s financial police have released sobering statistics about fraud and corruption in Italy’s public sector: Of the €4.6 billion ($5 billion) worth of public contracts checked last year, they found €1.5 billion in fraud and €2.6 billion wasted, The Wall Street Journal reported on an Associated Press story. The financial police released their annual report for 2014 on Wednesday, saying they had made police reports against 3,700 people for crimes against public administration.

Policy makers in Italy, Portugal and Spain say their economies and financial systems are strong enough to survive a Greek departure from the eurozone, but they acknowledge that Grexit might set a precedent replete with risks for Europe’s 60-year-old integration project. Government officials and independent analysts in Lisbon, Madrid and Rome say a chaotic Greek abandonment of the euro, bringing widespread economic distress and social upheaval in its wake, would serve as a cautionary shock and probably weaken anti-euro political forces in countries exposed to possible contagion from Greece.

The Irish Mortgage Holders’ Organisation wants the Government to introduce a State-sponsored split mortgage that would allow local authorities to supplement the payments made by home owners in loan arrears and in danger of having their properties repossessed. It also wants a mortgage-to-lease scheme to replace the mortgage-to-rent one that has failed to gain traction and it has proposed changes to the insolvency regime.

A strange thing is happening as Greece struggles to avert bankruptcy: Its troubled banks are loading up on more debt. These short-term bonds, which have been issued by the country’s largest banks and carry the guarantee of the Greek government, are not being sold to foreign investors. They are being issued to the only entity that would dare buy them: themselves. In the last four months, some of Greece’s largest banks, including Piraeus, Alpha and Eurobank — have self-issued more than 13 billion euros’ worth, or $14.3 billion, of these government-guaranteed bonds.

Determined to take Greek-Russian relations out of “the deep freeze”, a defiant Alexis Tsipras flew to Moscow yesterday for talks with president Vladimir Putin, ratcheting up the pressure on the western creditors keeping his debt-stricken country afloat, the Irish Times reported. Amid speculation that Mr Putin might make an offer of financial help that the Greek prime minister will find hard to turn down, officials said the controversial trip should be seen through the prism of Athens’s leftist-led government doing “what is best for Greece”.

The UK’s five largest banks cut bonus pools by more than £1 billion last year and most also reduced pay and staff numbers, according to Financial Times analysis, potentially blunting political attacks on banker excess ahead of the general election. The sweeping changes to remuneration are revealed in figures based on the annual financial statements of Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered.

their controversial veto – granted to them when a new insolvency service was set up two years ago – severely weakened before the summer, the Irish Times reported. The Government’s Economic Management Council (EMC), made up of Enda Kenny, Joan Burton, Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin, met last week. It is understood to be pushing the Department of Justice hard for a radical overhaul of insolvency rules as the mortgage arrears crisis continues to be a political problem.

Greece has two weeks to produce some red meat, the International New York Times reported in commentary. The prospect of a default is off the table for the time being after Yanis Varoufakis, the country’s finance minister, confirmed that Greece would meet a payment to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday. But, with more payments looming, the fear of bankruptcy will be back by the end of April if Greece doesn’t come up with some serious overhauls by then.