Brendan Howlin, minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, yesterday announced the Government’s plans for an additional €2.25bn investment in job-rich public infrastructure projects in Ireland, Finfacts reported. He said the projects selected a number of sectors and will be spread throughout the country. This will help to maximise the benefits to communities and to meet clearly identified local needs. The 13,000 jobs appear to be a back of an envelope job.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has confirmed that 20 Irish developers managed by the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) have declared themselves bankrupt in Britain, the Irish Times reported. Mr Noonan said Nama was “generally neutral” on bankruptcy location and did not believe debtors declaring bankruptcy outside the Republic would affect its debt recovery position. “Nama does not see the success of developers declaring bankruptcy in the UK rather than Ireland as significantly prejudicing its potential recoveries from the bankruptees,” he said.

The former Anglo Irish Bank has failed in its bid to get court orders requiring the family of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn to provide security for the cost of discovering documents as part of the family’s legal challenge aimed at avoiding liability for loans of some €2.34 billion, the Irish Times reported. The bank, now Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), had argued the costs of making the “vast” discovery sought by the family could be as high as €1 million, while the costs of discovery to which the bank had agreed would be about €600,000.

Ireland passed the latest review of its bailout program, and is now looking to secure a deal to refinance its huge banking debts to help it regain access to markets, Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under the terms of the 2010 bailout, the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, regularly scrutinize Ireland for its adherence to a program of fiscal and banking targets. "All measures have been implemented and the program remains on track," Mr. Noonan told a news briefing.

More than 21,000 people could make use of the new personal insolvency legislation in its first full year of operation, the Dáil has heard. An estimated 15,000 applications are expected for non-court related settlements and insolvency arrangements as well as upwards of 3,000 bankruptcy applications, the Irish Times reported. There were about 30 bankruptcy decisions made last year. A further 3,000-4,000 applications are anticipated for debt-relief notices, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has said.

Members of the Quinn family cannot be trusted to abide by court orders, the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) said Wednesday, as it revealed it was seeking the urgent appointment of receivers to the worldwide assets of family members, the Irish Times reported. The bank cited the recent finding of contempt of court orders by Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne against Seán Quinn snr, his son Seán and his nephew Peter Darragh Quinn, and material that emerged in that case.

Could Ireland be the biggest winner from last week’s European summit? If the price of its bonds is any guide, investors seem to think so, the Financial Times reported. The country’s financial markets have enjoyed a sharp turnround since the middle of last year, switching from one of the worst performing markets in the wake of its 2010 bail-out to one of the best. The EU summit agreement, which allows the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone’s new rescue fund, to invest directly in troubled banks, has provided a further boost.

The Irish government is mobilizing a campaign to seize advantage of a fresh euro-zone agreement to allow rescue funds to finance the currency bloc's broken banks, offering possible relief at the source of Ireland's financial straits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deals struck by European leaders on Friday elicited perhaps the loudest cheers from Ireland, which more than any other euro-zone nation has suffered the ill effects of a tight embrace between a country and its banks.

A deepening mortgage crisis in Ireland is threatening to derail the country’s fragile economic recovery and raising fresh questions about the health of its banks, the Financial Times reported. Stubbornly high unemployment and lower wages, caused by a four-year economic crisis, have pushed many mortgage holders to the brink. At the same time plummeting property prices, which have halved in four years, mean hundreds of thousands of borrowers are stuck in negative equity and cannot simply sell their homes to escape debts.

A new scheme that will turn holders of hopelessly distressed mortgages into renters has been unveiled by Minister of State for Housing Jan O'Sullivan, the Irish Times reported. The Mortgage to Rent scheme will allow families remain in their home, but they will have to relinquish ownership of the property. The ownership of the house will be transferred to a housing agency financed by a 70 per cent loan from the original mortgage lender with the remainder coming from the State, which will take a 30 per cent equity stake in the house.