Banks have secured greater protection for loans to companies in a landmark Supreme Court ruling, the Irish Times reported. The court’s unanimous judgment means Bank of Ireland gets priority over preferential creditors, including the Revenue, which is owed €600,000, in the liquidation of companies in the Belgard Motors Group. As the bank is owed €16.2 million, no other creditor will get paid.

Minister for Business and Employment Ged Nash has said he believes there is sufficient legal protection in place to deal with issues arising from cases such as the liquidation of the department store Clerys, the Irish Times reported. Mr Nash said workers and creditors at Clerys would not get paid over and above statutory payments by the liquidators but added that current law does provide for a situation where assets are kept in one arm of a company, while losses accumulate in another part, which is then liquidated.

Ireland should go back to the negotiating table for a “significant” debt writedown after the crisis in Greece is resolved, a former International Monetary Fund chief economist has said. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor, says although the Irish economy was recovering, the country would be “far better off” today if the Government had not taken over so much banking debt, the Irish Times reported. The influential economist says Ireland should be among a number of countries “that should receive a significant debt writedown”.

The trial of three former Anglo Irish Bank officials has been adjourned until Thursday so the defence can examine freshly uncovered documents, the Irish Times reported. The trial was due to resume on Wednesday morning. However Judge Patrick McCartan told the jury of six men and six women documents sought by the defence had only just been discovered by the prosecution and that the defence needed the rest of the day to examine them.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes Ireland’s parent’s rescue plan for the troubled business has trumped alternatives proposed by rival Boylesports and others, the Irish Times reported. Kenneth Fennell, the examiner appointed by the High Court to oversee the rescue of Ladbrokes Ireland told creditors and other interested parties on Tuesday that he favours the plan put forward by the chain’s UK parent. That proposal involves closing 60 out of 196 of its betting shops in the Republic, cutting 250 of its 840 jobs and repudiating a number of its leases.

Just more than €1 billion of taxable income was sheltered from tax through the use of various property reliefs, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has confirmed, the Irish Times reported. In a written reply to Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman, Michael McGrath, Mr Noonan said the figure totalled €574 million in 2012 and €450 million provisionally in 2013. Figures for last year are not yet available.

We should be used to them by now, but the figures relating to the Irish banking and economic crash still have the power to shock. At the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry, Central Bank of Ireland governor Patrick Honohan said the overall net cost to the economy of the banking bust was “well in excess of €100 billion and still growing”, the Irish Times reported in a commentary. What might the State have saved if an alternative to the blanket bank guarantee had been chosen?

Employers’ group Ibec has warned the Government not to legislate against minimum hour or flexible contracts, saying such a move could be detrimental to the economy, the Irish Times reported. Danny McCoy, Ibec ’s director general, was responding to claims by trade unions that uncertain terms of employment are exploiting workers. Mr McCoy also said that the tradition of a single job with a single employer has become “exceptional,” adding that full-time contracts in the past have allowed for people being kept in work despite lower demands for services.

Efforts by the Revenue to force indebted people pay VAT on advice to get themselves out of financial trouble have been rejected, the Irish Times reported. In what has been described as a landmark ruling has found that debt management services are not subject to VAT. Essentially, when people approached a debt management agency, Revenue was insisting that they be charge VAT at 23 per cent on the professional service fee charged by the debt agency to handle their case.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has said the Government should consider a speedier sale of State-owned banks such as AIB to boost competition in the mortgage market and ease borrowing costs, the Irish Times reported. In new research published with its quarterly economic commentary, the body found that the relationship between the European Central Bank policy rate and standard variable mortgage rates (SVRs) in the Irish banks weakened further after 2011. This was on top of negative credit growth across all sectors of the Irish economy.