AIB shareholders are to vote on the bank’s new capital re-organisation, which will see the value of their shareholding in the bank almost wiped out, at an egm on December 16th, the Irish Times reported. The bank announced its plans for an egm on Monday morning, as the first step in its plan to return to the markets next year and allow the Government to divest some of its 99.8 per cent stake in the bank.

AIB raised €750 million in a bond issue on Thursday as part of its plan to start repaying the bailout it received from the State, enjoying strong demand that bodes well for a planned stock market flotation next year, the Irish Times reported. The Government has pumped €21 billion into AIB since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, the biggest bailout given to any Irish bank still trading, and will recoup an initial €1.6 billion under its capital reorganisation.

Gayle Killilea, the wife of property developer Seán Dunne, has objected to an application in the US courts for relief that would help her husband’s Irish bankruptcy official recover assets from the couple, the Irish Times reported. In the latest development in long-running legal actions bridging bankruptcies in two countries and litigation in a third, Ms Killilea has asked a US court not to terminate the “automatic stay” that protects debtors from actions taken by creditors to recover their debts.

Allied Irish Banks is on the brink of issuing its first subordinated bond since being nationalised after the financial crisis, reaching a key milestone in its recovery. The euro Tier 2 bond will be the bank's first attempt at a public subordinated offering since it imposed severe losses on subordinated debt investors during the height of the eurozone financial crisis. The bank was bailed out in 2009 and fully nationalised in 2010. "It really is an important trade for them," said Chris Agathangelou, head of EMEA FIG syndicate at Nomura. "If it goes well, it sets up their whole capital plan.

In recent years, other European countries have accused Ireland of acting like an unfair low-tax haven. The European Commission, for example, is investigating whether Ireland gave Apple a preferential tax deal that broke the region’s tough state-aid rules, the International New York Times reported. While lawmakers and the company have repeatedly denied wrongdoing, the country is already phasing out the most controversial loopholes. Ireland has since turned to a new inducement: a low tax rate on revenue generated from patents and other intellectual property held in Ireland.

Davy, Ireland’s largest securities firm, is poised to hand employees about €40 million as it repays loans linked to its 2006 management-led buyout, according to people with knowledge of the matter, the Irish Times reported. The repayment is 1.8 times what workers lent the company to help finance its leveraged buyout from Bank of Ireland, including interest, which accrued at 6 per cent a year, said the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. The business was valued at €350 million in the buyout.

The European Central Bank (ECB) pushed for a quick fire sale of Irish bank assets as Ireland entered the bail-out programme in late 2010, putting the protection of its own balance sheet ahead of the interest of Irish taxpayers, former IMF deputy director Ajai Chopra has said. Mr Chopra, who was one of the senior IMF officials responsible for the design and monitoring of the bailout programme, wrote in a report for the European Parliament that the ECB’s advice on fiscal policy and structural reforms - which he said were outside its mandate - were wrong for Ireland.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned of big threats to Ireland’s “robust” growth, among them the risk of another property bubble, the Irish Times reported. Amid anxiety in the EU/IMF troika about Government moves to loosen the fiscal stance, the OECD said in a new forecast that Budget 2016 was “reasonable” once Dublin maintained progress to eliminate deficits in the public finances. The latest assessment from the OECD came as Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said he was confident the EU Commission will approve the Budget in the coming weeks.

Falling public spending will undermine the ability of public services to deal with social crises, a think tank has warned, the Irish Times reported. More than half the income gains of the last five years have gone to the top 10 per cent of earners, the Think-tank for Action on Social Change (Tasc) added.

Household debt fell to its lowest level since the first quarter of 2006 in the period April to June, according to new Central Bank data, the Irish Times reported. The latest figures show debt fell to €153.2 billion or €33,056 per capita in the second quarter of 2015, a decline of €1.3 billion or 0.9 per cent versus the preceding quarter. For the same quarter last year, household debt fell by €1.7 billion. The decline reflected debt repayments, write-downs and write-offs. The level of household debt has fallen by 24.8 per cent since its peak of €203.7bn in 2008.