Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a decision permitting the family of bankrupt businessman Sean Quinn advance legal claims which could lead to their avoiding liability for €2.34 billion loans, the Irish Times reported. Patricia Quinn and her five children say they had no knowledge of activities surrounding the loans made to Quinn companies by IBRC’s predecessor, Anglo Irish Bank. They claim the loans were illegal because they were used to support the bank’s share price and they cannot therefore be made liable for them.

Irish MEP and former Government minister Brian Hayes said today the Central Bank’s plan to require borrowers to have a 20 per cent deposit to get a home loan was “unfair”, and called for cheaper longer term loans to be introduced.

Bank of Ireland repossessed 621 owner-occupied or buy-to-let properties in the first half of this year, according to documents submitted to the Oireachtas finance committee in advance of the appearance by its chief executive Richie Boucher today, the Irish Times reported. Bank of Ireland has told the committee that 322 judgments were enforced against owner-occupiers, with 299 on buy-to-let investments. This means that the property was either in the bank’s possession or had been sold. In the first six months of this year, the bank had sold 80 properties that it had repossessed.

Ryanair is one step closer to taking over Cyprus Airways after getting through to the second round of bidding for the ailing flag carrier at the weekend, the Irish Times reported. The Irish airline was one of 15 which submitted proposals to the Cypriot government in September to acquire and turn around Cyprus Airways, which in 2012 needed a €73 million state bailout after losing €56 million. According to incoming finance chief Neil Sorahan, Ryanair was informally told on Friday that it was on a shortlist, meaning it is through to the second round of the process.

Irish banks are preventing small businesses from growing “beyond a certain size” because they only offer them short-term loans, according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, the Irish Times reported. Speaking yesterday at the launch of the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), which will make up to €5 billion in cheap, longer-term loans available to small and medium-sized businesses over five years, the Minister pointed out these enterprises were a very important part of the economy. “But once they reach a certain size they do not continue to grow,” he said.

Six specialist judges appointed to speed up thousands of insolvency actions - earning salaries of €140,623 a year - are "frustrated" because they have so little work to do, Independent.ie reported. The dedicated cadre of judges were appointed in July 2013 to deal with an anticipated avalanche of debt cases, following what former Justice Minister Alan Shatter described as a "seismic shift" brought in by the 2012 Personal Insolvency Act.

Permanent TSB and its advisers plan to canvass more than 30 institutional investors and private equity groups in Europe and the US in the coming weeks to seek an investment of €200 million or more to help plug a shortfall in its capital identified yesterday as part of a pan-European exercise by regulators, the Irish Times reported. Permanent TSB was the only bank in Ireland to fail the European Central Bank’s stress tests. The ECB found a capital shortfall of €854.8 million but PTSB said it has already accounted for more than 80 per cent of this through various actions.

Irish state-owned lender Permanent Tsb (PTSB) is selling a portfolio of mostly bad mortgage loans with a gross value of 468 million euros ($594 million) ahead of European stress tests that could require it to boost its capital, Reuters reported. PTSB said on Wednesday the mortgages, which includes 350 million euros of non-performing loans, were being sold by wholly owned-subsidiary Springboard to a company called Mars Capital Ireland No.2 Limited.

Permanent TSB, which is 99.2 per cent owned by the State, is expected to announce details of its capital-raising plan on Sunday after the European Central Bank publishes the results of its pan-European comprehensive assessments, which PTSB is expected to fail, the Irish Times reported. It is not clear how much capital PTSB will be required to raise but the expectation is it will be below €1 billion.

Two businessmen in dispute with AIB over more than €6 million in property debts say the bank forged their signatures on loan documents, the High Court heard yesterday, the Irish Times reported. Earlier this year, State-controlled AIB appointed EY as receivers to properties in Ireland and Britain belonging to businessmen Brendan McCleary and Brendan Hamilton on foot of a series of loans the bank claims are overdue.