The deadline for second-round bids for Quinn Insurance passed yesterday as the likelihood of a sale to a trade buyer grows amid uncertainty over the future of State-owned Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish Times reported. The bank has submitted a joint bid with US insurance giant Liberty Mutual, which has also submitted an offer to take over the general insurance part of the firm. Anglo has shelved plans for a solo offer due to considerable regulatory hurdles facing the proposal as the cost of the bank has soared to as much as €34 billion.

The head of the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday urged European countries to find a comprehensive solution to the region's debt crisis, faulting their approach to date as ad hoc and too slow, The Wall Street Journal reported. Dominique Strauss-Kahn spoke as European finance ministers met in Brussels to debate enlarging the temporary fund for euro-zone members in need of emergency loans, as well as how to set up a permanent funding vehicle. But those talks so far have been marred by sharp disagreements among various euro-zone governments over the details of future bailouts.

A metaphor for Ireland's financial humiliation would be harder to find than the hearing held Tuesday morning in the airy boardroom of a downtown Boston law firm, Reuters reported. On the same day that Dublin's government was unveiling a deeply unpopular austerity budget in the wake of the country's banking crisis, former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank David Drumm was forced to testify under oath for the first time about his holdings as part of a complex bankruptcy process that puts at risk his remaining properties, vehicles and even his ability to buy gifts for his children.

EU finance ministers have resolved to conduct a new round of more stringent stress tests on Europe’s banks, a decision that reflects lingering dissatisfaction with the first pan-European examination of the sector only five months ago, the Irish Times reported. After the failure of the first test to take account of liquidity pressures, economics commissioner Olli Rehn said the new stress tests would be based on new financial architecture. “We need to opt for fullest possible transparency when conducting the bank stress test,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Ireland took the first crucial step Tuesday on an expected four-year road to financial recovery by securing support for a budget that will make €6 billion ($7.99 billion) in cuts across all sectors of society, from the most vulnerable welfare recipients to the country's political elite, The Wall Street Journal reported. Despite pressure from some quarters of the international community, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan pledged to maintain Ireland's corporate tax rate, one of the lowest in Europe.

Begbies Traynor, the corporate insolvency specialist, expects interim profits to be £700,000 below the £4.3m ($6.8m) reported for the previous first half as fewer-than-expected companies have gone bust, the Financial Times reported. Ric Traynor, executive chairman, said the recession and its aftermath was proving to be different to previous downturns in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which ended with a material increase in insolvencies. However, he expected more companies to fail in the first half next year.

The Icelandic economy showed its first growth for two years in the third quarter, helped by rising household consumption, the Irish Times reported. Iceland's top three banks were hit hard by the global credit crisis in late 2008 after expanding rapidly across Europe and the crash triggered a deep recession and the island's gross domestic product (GDP) fell 6.8 per cent in 2009. But, helped by an IMF-led bailout, the economy and currency have stabilised.

Ireland's cash-strapped government wants some of the country's workers to do something they haven't for years: pay income taxes, The Wall Street Journal reported. Roughly half of Ireland's 2.2 million workers don't pay any tax on personal income, a policy likely to disappear over the next few years if Ireland's new budget is approved Tuesday as is widely expected. European officials have said passing the new austerity budget for 2011 is a requirement of the European Union and International Monetary Fund's €67.5 billion ($90 billion) rescue.

The pained debate over a $112 billion international rescue package for Ireland will come to a crunch on Tuesday when a politically weakened Prime Minister Brian Cowen goes to Parliament seeking approval for the harshest austerity program of any government in Europe. But beyond the financial pain, the bitterest pill for the Irish may be the dawning realization that the country’s finances could fall under a foreign yoke for the next 20 or 30 years, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Germany beat back bids for more expansive approaches to Europe's rescue of its fiscally troubled countries, leaving the euro zone to muddle through in the near term as markets warily watch Portugal and Spain, The Wall Street Journal reported. The European Union's chief economic power said that for now, it wouldn't support an enlarged rescue facility, nor the issuance of joint bonds that would let weaker nations ride the coattails of its sterling credit, though it didn't rule them out in the future.