There was a 70% increase in the number of permanent solutions agreed through the Insolvency Service of Ireland last year, RTÉ.ie reported. The ISI said the recent removal of the banks' veto over proposed arrangements involving debtors' homes has already resulted in financial institutions reversing some of their own rejection decisions. Lenders overturned four out of 12 rejection decisions which were appealed last month. There were 1,700 permanent solutions for debtors agreed last year, a 70% increase on 2014.

Troubled oil and gas company Petroceltic has confirmed it has been given more breathing by its banks today as it continues its search for a buyer, the Irish Times reported. The publicly quoted exploration company is in breach of its senior bank facilities, but has received a number of waivers on loan repayments from its lenders. The latest waiver, which expired on Friday, has been extended until the end of the month.

An appeal by the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) against a High Court ruling that it must pay out on outstanding claims following the collapse of the Setanta Insurance Company in 2014 has opened before the Court of Appeal, the Irish Times reported. The MIBI is appealing against Mr Justice John Hedigan’s finding that it was liable to pay out in respect of claims against persons who were insured with Setanta at the time of its liquidation. The case has important implications for motor insurance premiums as well as parties involved in claims concerning Setanta.

The Revenue Commissioners secured 27 criminal convictions for serious tax evasion and fraud in 2015, according to figures released Thursday, the Irish Times reported. Those prosecutions were on top of 2,063 summary convictions, or lesser charges, for the non-filling of tax returns and customs offences. Headline figures for the year show the service conducted more than 461,000 individual audits and compliance investigations which yielded €642.5 million.

The Irish Mortgage Holders’ Organisation (IMHO) has proposed that banks, insolvency practitioners, the Government, regulators, and various other State agencies and debt advisory groups come together to try and formulate a big-ticket solution for long-term mortgage arrears.

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.