Ireland

An insolvency company has revealed details of its clients who have gone bankrupt under rules introduced a year ago, RTÉ News reported. The figures show that banks which lent mortgages to these clients have had to write off 68% of the outstanding debt. In all of the cases the borrowers will lose or have already lost their homes. Some of the borrowers had applied for personal insolvency but were turned down by the banks. The figures have been compiled by the Insolvency Resolution Service, which acts as a personal insolvency practitioner to individuals who are in arrears.

Taxpayers may end up footing the bill for third-party claims related to the collapse of Setanta Insurance, the Irish Times reported. The Maltese-registered insurer went into liquidation in April leaving 75,000 motor policyholders in Ireland with no cover. It had been selling mainly commercial motor insurance through brokers and was known as a low-cost operator. Initially Minister for Finance Michael Noonan signalled the industry-funded Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) would cover all outstanding third-party claims emanating from the collapse.

The prospect that Irish banks could offload some of their problematic mortgage debts as part of the European Central Bank’s asset-backed security-purchase programme receded this weekend as ECB vice- president Vitor Constancio said the bank would need state guarantees in order to buy lower-ranking debt, the Irish Times reported. At the end of two days of finance ministers meeting, the ECB’s second-in-command said the bank would need some kind of guarantee if it was to buy the riskier debt held by European banks. “We will buy the senior tranches of ABS [asset-backed securities].

Receivers have taken control of the HCJV, a property company linked to the Caulfield McCarthy retail group, one of the State’s biggest SuperValu franchisees with stores and shopping centres in eight locations, the Irish Times reported. Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) has appointed Sean McNamara of Smith & Williamson accountants to take control of seven of the properties on foot of unpaid loans totalling more than €80 million, owed by HCJV and several of its subsidiaries, which are also in receivership.

An application by property developer Sean Dunne to end his US bankruptcy case will be heard by a Connecticut judge at trial in December, the Irish Times reported. Judge Alan Shiff set the trial date for December 3rd in a court filing yesterday. He had previous given parties until today to file objections to Mr Dunne’s bid not to seek a discharge from bankruptcy in the US in favour of proceeding with a single bankruptcy case in Ireland.

Ireland has won German backing to refinance part of its bailout loans, according to Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin, the Irish Times reported. Speaking to reporters in Paris, Mr Howlin said the German parliament had set a date to ratify Ireland’s request to refinance its bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Government is seeking to repay up to €18 billion of its €22.5 billion loan from the IMF early, in a move that could save the Irish exchequer up to €400 million a year.

The Irish government has begun an intensive diplomatic push to persuade the European Commission and the European Central Bank to allow it to make an early repayment of a portion of its €67bn bailout debt to the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Times reported. Dublin believes that it could save at least €375m a year in interest payments on €22bn of IMF debt by refinancing three quarters of the amount in the capital markets to take advantage of ultra-low eurozone interest rates.

A mortgage expert has said the Insolvency Service of Ireland has "failed" and called for an overhaul of how insolvency is managed, the Irish Examiner reported. ISI was set up in March 2013 under the Personal Insolvency Act to provide debt relief mechanisms to those facing insolvency, or the inability to service their existing debts. One of the key debt relief mechanisms was personal insolvency arrangements, as they dealt with secured debt such as mortgages.

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said his government’s campaign to sell stakes in Irish banks to the euro-area bailout fund is less of a priority now that the holdings are worth more, Bloomberg News reported. A deal with the European Stability Mechanism “is not as attractive a deal any more because our bank shares have become very valuable,” Noonan said in an RTE Radio interview today. A gradual sale of shares in 99.8 percent state-owned Allied Irish Banks “over time to the market” is probably a better way to lower state debt, Noonan said.

The number of buy-to-let mortgage accounts in arrears is continuing to increase despite rising rents in Dublin and elsewhere, the Irish Times reported. The latest figures from the Central Bank, however, show the number of homeowners in arrears has fallen again. Nonetheless, this improvement masked an increase in very long-term arrears, with the number of those behind in their repayments by two years or more continuing to rise. The figures for the second quarter of this year indicate mortgage arrears linked to investment properties remains a key problem for the banks.