Ireland faces 85,000 potential job losses and a sharp economic slowdown if the UK crashes out of the EU in October, the country’s finance minister has said, in a stark warning about the effect of a no-deal Brexit, the Financial Times reported. Paschal Donohoe said 50,000 to 55,000 jobs could be lost within two years of the UK exiting the EU without a deal, with another 30,000 at risk in the medium term if there were no resolution to political chaos in Westminster over Britain’s departure from the bloc.

Some €875 million – or 7.3 per cent – of all performing loans to small and medium businesses have a “high vulnerability” suggesting their ability to repay in the event of a downturn would be threatened, according to Central Bank research, the Irish Times reported. The research, conducted across three banks in the Republic (AIB, Bank of Ireland and Ulster), found that there is more than €12 billion in outstanding loans to SMEs.

The chairman of the largest Irish estate agency has said it is time to “shout stop” about the Central Bank’s mortgage lending restrictions and has called on the regulator to relax its rules to release “the genius of capitalism”, the Irish Times reported. Mark FitzGerald, the chairman of Sherry FitzGerald, said the Central Bank’s macroprudential rules, which cap new mortgages according to loan-to-value and loan-to-income limits, are “too binding”.

Over €39.82 million remains unpaid to the Revenue Commissioners in taxes, penalties and interest from tax defaulters who were named last year and in 2017, the Irish Times reported. Figures provided by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe show that €15.5 million remains unpaid by published tax defaulters in tax, penalties and interest from 2018. In a written Dáil reply to Joan Burton TD, Mr Donohoe confirmed that a further €24.2 million remains unpaid in taxes, penalties and interest from the 2017 lists of published tax defaulters.

The Central Bank will be able to fine and disqualify senior bankers for failings under their watch without first proving wrongdoing by their employers under planned new laws being drawn up in the wake of the tracker-mortgage scandal, The Irish Times reported. More than a decade after the financial crash and three years after Britain introduced a senior manager regime, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe received the go-ahead from Cabinet on Tuesday to push through similar measures in the Republic. It is expected to come into force from next year.

The Government’s medium-term projections for the public finances are “not credible”, the State’s fiscal watchdog has said in its latest assessment of the economy, The Irish Times reported. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) said the projections – laid out in the Stability Programme Update 2019 – show exchequer surpluses increasing each year based on expenditure forecasts that were not probable.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) is resisting calls from the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to verify that debtors in default are not involved in the illegal purchase of assets of the so-called bad bank, The Irish Times reported. Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe has been informed by Nama that meeting this recommendation, contained in a PAC report in March, “would give rise to a series of practical difficulties which could have an adverse commercial impact on its sales activities”.

A High Court judge has reserved judgment in a personal insolvency application by musician Frank McNamara and his barrister wife Theresa Lowe, the Irish Examiner reported. Mr Justice Denis McDonald said he won't give his decision before July as he has "to make sense" of the personal insolvency legislation which had been "drafted in an unhelpful way". It followed the second day of legal submissions in the case in which the couple seek court approval for an arrangement to assist them in dealing with debts of €3.7m.

Belgian financial services giant KBC Group has recouped nearly a third of the €1.4 billion it injected into its Irish unit during the financial crisis to rescue the business as it grappled with mounting bad loan losses, The Irish Times reported. KBC Bank Ireland, which returned to profit in 2015, paid €183 million back by way of a dividend to its Brussels-based parent last year, a spokeswoman for the unit said. That is in addition to an initial €227 million handed over in 2017 – bringing the total to €410 million, or 29.3 per cent of its total rescue bill following the crash.

The Government forecasts that it will receive a further €100 million next year from the remains of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), as the company’s liquidators start to pay interest due to unsecured creditors since early 2013, The Irish Times reported. The figure is contained in a written answer given this week by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe to Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty on foot of a parliamentary question. IBRC was set up in 2011 to take over the assets of failed lenders Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS).