Ireland

Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem has played down the possibility that Ireland may be granted debt relief for Bank of Ireland and AIB by the European Stability Mechanism fund, pointing out that its €60 billion cap could limit its capacity for retrospective deployment, the Irish Times reported. “Technically speaking it would be possible. Politically it would be difficult,” Mr Dijsselbloem said following an agm of the ESM’s board of governors in Luxembourg.

Belgian financial institution KBC appeared to rule itself out yesterday from any interest in a link-up with Ulster Bank in the Republic as part of the strategic review being carried out by that bank’s parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Irish Times reported. In a presentation to investors, KBC made clear that it plans to plough an independent furrow in Ireland until it is back in profit here in 2016. “For Ireland, KBC’s first priority is to become profitable from 2016 onwards.

Trade unions have told Aer Lingus they would have serious problems with any demands for staff to provide compensatory savings in return for investment to deal with a deficit in their pension scheme, the Irish Times reported. A Government-appointed expert panel recommended this week Aer Lingus should increase its proposed capital injection into new pension arrangements for serving personnel from €110million to €146.7 million.

The annual cost of servicing the debt associated with the financial sector bailout in Ireland in 2008 is estimated at about €1.6 billion, according to figures provided by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, the Irish Times reported. This is from an expected cost of €8 billion to service Ireland’s sizeable national debt this year. The Department of Finance has also estimated that about €41 billion of our national debt is associated with the cost of rescuing the financial sector, said the Minister in a written reply to Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman Michael McGrath.

Ireland's recovery is under way, but its fragile lenders and the large amounts of debt held by households pose considerable threats to stability, the Irish central bank said Thursday, in a report aimed at identifying the substantial risks faced by the country, The Wall Street Journal reported. Marking significant milestones, the country exited its three-year international bailout in December and has regained full access to government debt markets, at historically low yields.

The purchase of three major Irish businesses over the past two years by the billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien involved total bank write-offs of more than €300 million, the Irish Times reported. The deals saw the businessman invest €230 million to acquire the Siteserv Group, the Topaz Group and the Beacon Private Hospital. The Siteserv deal saw the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, which is now in liquidation, write off €110 million of the €150 million it was owed.

The court-appointed trustee overseeing the US bankruptcy of property developer Sean Dunne intends to ask the American court’s permission to seek access to family law documents in Ireland, the Irish Times reported. Timothy Miltenberger, lawyer for Mr Dunne’s trustee Rich Coan, told the Connecticut bankruptcy court yesterday that he intended to apply under US bankruptcy law to obtain information about the Co Carlow developer’s finances under confidentiality conditions.

Anglo Irish Bank, the institution that brought Ireland’s financial sector crashing down in 2008, has been “finally consigned to history” as liquidators prepare to sell the last of its assets and repay its outstanding debt, according to the country’s finance minister, the Financial Times reported. Michael Noonan’s comment came as Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency, on Friday raised its long-term rating on Ireland to A minus from BBB plus, citing “brightening prospects” for the Irish economy.

The IBRC liquidation has proved a highly lucrative process for some of the best known financial and law firms in the State, the Irish Times reported. KPMG, the firm overseeing the process, racked up fees of €52 million across its Irish and UK offices but knocked €5 million off the bill at the request of the Government. The firm appears to have accrued a total of 242,000 man hours on the liquidation, which works out at €194 per hour per person. A&L Goodbody, a blue-chip Dublin law firm, was the next best earner.

Credit unions could provide billions more in loans to small- and medium-sized businesses if they were allowed to centralise funds within a new structure that was guaranteed by the State, an Oireachtas committee heard this morning, the Irish Times reported. The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation also heard however that many loan applications received from SMEs by credit unions are “unrealistic” and based on belief that “optimism will triumph over reality”.