Ireland

The number of registered unemployed workers in Spain has seen the biggest drop for at least a decade while joblessness in Ireland has hit its lowest level since 2008, when the country was about to enter a prolonged financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The Spanish figures provide a boost to the economic record of acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he tries to form a government following an inconclusive general election.

Fianna Fáil has said the Government’s failure to deal with the “spiralling arrears crisis” in the sub-prime mortgage market is “disastrous” as the owners of such loans are amongst “the most aggressive in the market” at seeking court ordered repossessions, the Irish Times reported. New figures provided by the Central Bank indicate that 20,338 mortgage accounts issued by sub-prime lenders were in arrears of more than 90 days at the end of September 2015. This compares to 19,935 at the end of December 2014.

New quarterly figures from the Central Bank show mortgage debt declined by €61 million to €60.3 billion during the third quarter of 2015, the Irish Times reported. The annual rate of decline in loans for home purchase was 0.8 per cent at end-September 2015, following a 1.4 per cent decline at end-June. Fixed-rate mortgages increased by €839 million, or 14.6 per cent, during the third quarter to stand at €6.6 billion.

Nama expects to report a profit of well in excess of €1 billion this year, its chairman Frank Daly has told an Oireacthas Committee. Nama reported a profit of €473 million in the first half of the year and expects to more than match this in the second half, the Irish Times reported. Nama now predicts that it will generate a surplus of €2 billion by the time it completes its work. The organisation took on loans from the banks at a written down value, and the latest predictions means that the final value of the loans will be some €2 billion more than expected at that time.

Former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm will spend Christmas and the following two months in the maximum-security prison in Plymouth, south of Boston, after being denied bail, the Irish Times reported. A spokeswoman for Plymouth County Correctional Facility confirmed that they were holding the 49-year-old former banker. He is being held in custody pending his extradition in a Boston court in early March 2016. The Dubliner’s prisoner identity number is “68201.” The all-male prison holds about 1,000 county, state and federal inmates.

Retired solicitor Brian O’Donnell and his wife, Dr Mary Patricia O’Donnell, have lost their Supreme Court appeal aimed at overturning a €71.5m summary judgment order granted against them four years ago. The couple had claimed the High Court judge who entered the judgment against them in favour of Bank of Ireland should not have dealt with their case. This was because the judge, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, now a member of the Court of Appeal, previously held shares in Bank of Ireland and had a business relationship with it, they claimed.

AIB is seeking summary judgment for €2.8 million and €3.4 million in separate but related cases against two businessmen arising from loans made for property investments, the Irish Times reported. The bank’s cases against Ivor O’Brien, Sheestown, Co Kilkenny, and Bryan Hanrahan, Raggetsland, Warrington, Co Kilkenny, were admitted to the Commercial Court by Mr Justice Brian McGovern on the application of AIB. There was no appearance for the two men.

Ireland’s biggest insurer RSA made a loss of €176.6 million in 2014 while also receiving a capital injection of €137 million from its UK parent, its latest filed accounts show, the Irish Times reported. These are a legacy of irregularities in its claims and finance functions and issues around bodily injury claims that arose in 2013 and resulted in three senior executives being suspended and litigation between the insurer and its former chief executive in Ireland, Philip Smith.

Legislation before Cabinet on Tuesday to reduce the term of bankruptcy to one year would be “the single most positive thing” the Government has done for people in debt, according to the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (IMHO), the Irish Times reported. A Government source on Monday night said it was expected the Bill by Labour TD Willie Penrose would be “broadly accepted” by the Cabinet, although there will be “some minor amendments” by the Government on “mainly technical issues”. In the bill, the discharge term for bankruptcy is reduced from three years to one year.

A Connecticut court has rejected an attempt by Gayle Killilea to prevent her husband Seán Dunne’s Irish bankruptcy assignee from getting a ruling from the court to help him chase assets transferred by the bust developer to his wife, the Irish Times reported. Mr Dunne has also been declared bankrupt in the US and his court-appointed trustee there sought the ruling that would help him and Chris Lehane, who is overseeing his Irish bankruptcy, to pursue the assets.