Developer Ray Grehan, whose property interests have been put into receivership by the National Asset Management Agency, has said there is no incentive for him to stay in Ireland and repay his debts to the State loans agency. Mr Grehan said Nama would continue to pursue him for the full €650 million in property loans he owes even though the agency has removed his ability to repay his debts. “There is no future in today’s market in Ireland but there may be a future in 10 years’ time,” he told the Irish Times.

Extensive debt forgiveness for struggling mortgages borrowers was "not a realistic option", Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said, the Irish Times reported. Speaking to the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform today, the Minister said resolutions "must be found on a case-by-case basis through open and meaningful engagement between the distressed borrower and the lender". He said there was no "magic bullet" solution to the problem.

Ireland’s unemployment rate nudged upwards for the third consecutive month in August, with the number of people on the seasonally adjusted Live Register increasing by 1,600 as summer jobs failed to materialise with their traditional frequency, the Irish Times reported. This pushed the standardised unemployment rate up by 0.1 per cent to 14.4 per cent last month. Overall, there were 469,713 people signing on the Live Register of jobseekers benefit and allowance claimants in August on an unadjusted basis, a rise of 2,790, or 0.6 per cent, over the year.

A new agency with legal powers to enforce debt restructuring agreements between banks and struggling home owners is being considered by the Government to deal with the rise in distressed mortgages. The Cabinet is awaiting a report from an expert group, which is due by the end of next month, before making any major decisions in this area. However, a high-level Government source told the Irish Times yesterday it would avoid any measures “on such a scale that people feel they can abandon their mortgages”.

Bank of Ireland said Wednesday it would impose a 60 per cent haircut on a group of UK junior bond investors through a revised debt buyback offer, the Irish Times reported. In July the bank withdrew its original offer to swap £75 million (€85.3 million) in perpetual unsecured junior bonds for cash or equities, citing administrative difficulties. The decision to terminate the offer came as the lender faced a legal action by a British investor in the bonds which were originally sold by Bristol and West Building Society, which Bank of Ireland acquired in 1997.

The most recently available figures from the Central Bank note almost 50,000 mortgages were in arrears for more than three months last March. The majority of them were over six months behind in their payments, the Irish Times reported. Even allowing for no increase in the rate of people falling into arrears, it is likely that by the end of September this number will have exceeded 60,000, and this doesn’t include those people who have agreed some form of restructuring with their lender. Meanwhile, property prices continue to fall, putting more homeowners into negative equity.

A committee representing so- called Pik note loanholders in Eircom has written to the board of its Cayman Islands-based parent stating they have every reason to believe the company is insolvent. In the latest twist to the Eircom financial saga, they have also questioned how the parent company intends to repay its debt. In addition, the committee has accused the directors of being in breach of their duty of care towards them and have warned they will take legal or other action if necessary to protect their position.

UK bank Lloyds has teamed up with Dublin company Green Property to help manage Irish commercial properties which have been put into receivership by the bank, the Irish Times reported. Green will offer property management services to receivers on assets in the €13 billion commercial property book at what was formerly Bank of Scotland (Ireland). It is estimated that properties supporting up to €1 billion of commercial loans in Lloyds’ Irish subsidiary could fall under Green’s management if receivers choose to avail of the company’s services.

Former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm faced the final round of questions from creditors in Boston yesterday before a final decision on whether he should be discharged from bankruptcy, the Irish Times reported. Public trustee Kathleen Dwyer has set August 31st as the last time objections can be raised to his discharge – which, if granted, would effectively shield him from multiple claims.

The intervention of the European Central Bank this week to buy Italian and Spanish bonds has successfully dragged the two countries’ cost of borrowing to sustainable levels. However the threat posed by contagion in the euro zone’s debt crisis is far from over, with analysts warning yields could rise again to danger levels (generally understood to be 6 per cent rates on 10-year bonds) if the ECB does not continue to buy the debt of both states in the short run before a longer-term solution is agreed, the Irish Times reported.