Irish voters are preparing to shutter one of the two chambers of parliament in a referendum that will take place on Oct. 4, one of the few examples of austerity reducing the number of politicians, The Wall Street Journal reported. Having survived in one form or another for an almost uninterrupted stretch of over 90 years, the parliament's 60-seat upper house now faces oblivion if voters decide by a simple majority to get rid of it. Opinion polls suggest that over 60% of those voting Friday will cast ballots for the 'Yes' proposition, sealing the fate of the upper house.

The Gathering has failed to halt the flow of companies in the Republic’s hospitality sector going to the wall, according to the latest figures, the Irish Times reported. Figures highlighted yesterday by the Insolvency Journal show show that 118 companies in the hospitality industry went to the wall between January and September, a 2 per cent increase on the same period in 2012, when the number was 116.

The decision to liquidate IBRC could lead to “substantial savings” for the Government, the Fiscal Advisory Council has claimed, but it warned that the level of savings would depend on the market view of the country’s creditworthiness, the Irish Times reported. The Government decided in February to liquidate State-owned IBRC to reduce the annual cost of toxic lenders. Estimates at the time placed the annual savings at around €1 billion. However, the advisory committee said the gains from the move relative to the size of Government debt would be small.

New State-backed insolvency deals will fail to lift large numbers of people out of debt, the first academic study of the system has concluded. The findings come after accusations that the Insolvency Service has been set up mainly to benefit the professional classes, and is not for PAYE workers. Critics have charged that the new process is set to be a rescue-mechanism for those with buy-to-lets, after the head of the service admitted that broke families that have no income and no assets they can sell off will be unable to avail of the new deals.

The National Asset Management Agency is planning to sell two loan portfolios in the coming weeks for an estimated €350 million to €400 milliion. This will add to the €2.2 billion in loan and asset sales already achieved by the agency this year, the Irish Times reported. Addressing a meeting of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in Limerick yesterday, Nama chairman Frank Daly said they portfolio comprised of “prime retail and residential as well as offices”. Nama refused to comment further on the specifics of the loans, citing commercial sensitivities.

The slew of objections filed this week in the US bankruptcy proceedings of Irish Bank Resolutions Corporation (IBRC) has delayed by several weeks its bid to protect up to $1 billion of its assets from potential seizure by creditors, the Irish Times reported. Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG, the special liquidators of IBRC, had originally sought an emergency hearing at a Delaware court yesterday for Chapter 15 protection. This would protect its US assets from a litany of lawsuits brought against it by US creditors, until the bank’s Irish wind-down was completed.

Up to five investors are understood to be willing to bid at least €950 million to buy the loans given to the property group controlled by Michael O’Flynn from Nama, although the State agency has yet to put them on the market, the Irish Times reported. Mr O’Flynn, the main shareholder behind Cork-based O’Flynn Construction and Tiger Developments, was one of the “top 10” developers whose loans were the first taken over by Nama when it began buying property-backed debt from the Republic’s banks in 2010.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) was granted permission by a US court to take control of 67 acres of land at Celbridge, Co Kildare, owned by bankrupt property developer Seán Dunne, the Irish Times reported. The State loans agency sought relief from the automatic stay granting Mr Dunne court protection from his creditors to take control of the land, which is now worth just €812,000 but is securing Nama debt of €65 million.

Two so-called vulture funds in the United States, which hold $75 million of subordinated bonds issued by the former Anglo Irish Bank, are threatening to scupper an attempt by the bank’s liquidators to protect $1 billion of its US assets from seizure by its creditors. The Irish Times understands that the funds, Burlington Alpha and Burlington Beta, are linked to Elliott Management, the giant hedge fund controlled by US billionaire Paul Singer. Mr Singer is one of the US Republican Party’s biggest contributors.

Two of the most significant impacts of the global financial crisis on Irish society have been the sharp rise in unemployment and the corresponding increase in the number of people leaving Ireland for better opportunities abroad, the Irish Times reported. At the beginning of 2008, just 4.9 per cent of the population was unemployed. In the 12 months to April that year, just 13,100 Irish people emigrated, and you would have been hard pressed to find many among them who felt they had no choice but to go.