Ireland

The European Commission is "very satisfied" with the progress Ireland has made on restructuring its banks, a spokesman said Monday, Dow Jones reported. The spokesman for European Commissioner Olli Rehn said Irish banks "have already booked very substantial losses." The EU is "very satisfied with the progress being made with this restructuring," he said. The spokesman also said the European Union expects to complete by the end of March an analysis of the Irish banking system's balance sheets and liquidity situations.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has asked European Central Bank (ECB) chief Jean-Claude Trichet to deepen the bank’s emergency support for Ireland’s financial system, the Irish Times reported. At his first EU meeting yesterday, the Minister said he wanted the Frankfurt-based institution to allow a longer deleveraging process for the Irish banks and to provide medium-term liquidity so they do not have to rely on two-week funding.

A new survey claims that Irish banks are refusing almost half of the credit applications being made by small businesses, RTÉ News reported. The survey by the small business group, ISME, also indicates that 79% of firms found that banks were making it more difficult to get credit. Those that were successful said they were being penalised with higher interest rates and charges. Mark Fielding, the chief executive of ISME, said the bailed-out Irish banks had ignored Government instructions to get credit flowing again.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement has no power to investigate practices at Irish Nationwide as building societies do not fall under its remit, a spokesman for the office said, the Irish Times reported. The spokesman said the office could not comment on reports around corporate governance failures at the building society under former chief executive Michael Fingleton as it did not cover entities such as the building societies.

Some 80 homes are being sold for half their original value in the biggest ever receivership auction, the Herald.ie reported. The list includes a mews apartment in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 for €600,000 -- down from €1.6m -- an apartment in Dublin's city centre Temple Bar for €80,000, and an apartment in Portlaoise for €35,000. Hundreds of thousands of euro have been cut from boom-time prices with some apartments being sold for less than €24,000.

“Group think” and a “herd instinct” which forced the banks to chase profits made by Anglo Irish Bank were among the causes of the banking crisis, according to draft findings of the Nyberg commission of investigation, the Irish Times reported. The commission has, however, concluded it is difficult to assign blame more specifically for the crisis as many parties share some degree of responsibility.

Ireland's new parliament elected soft-spoken Enda Kenny prime minister Wednesday to lead a coalition government that faces immediate pressure to revive the nation's debt-crippled economy, The Huffington Post reported. Kenny, 59, vowed to solve a bank-bailout crisis that has overwhelmed Ireland's finances and required an emergency rescue by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. He said terms of the EU-IMF loans must be renegotiated to make them more affordable for Ireland and enable the country's recovery from record deficits and double-digit unemployment.

Eircom workers have been told by their union leaders the heavily indebted telecoms group could be taken over by its lenders if they do not agree to implement the €92 million in labour savings outlined last week in its rescue plan, the Irish Times reported. The warning came from the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), which represents the majority of Eircom’s 7,170-strong workforce.

Ireland's new government will stick to the budget targets laid down in an 85 billion euro EU/IMF rescue package as it seeks to win European partners round to giving it easier terms on the loans, Reuters reported. Ireland's prime minister in-waiting Enda Kenny is under huge pressure to persuade Europe's paymaster Germany to cut the interest rate Brussels is charging and give Dublin more time to restructure its banks before a Europe-wide deal on the debt crisis is hammered out at summit on March 24-25.

Bank of Ireland repeatedly misled outgoing Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan by insisting that no performance-related bonuses had been paid to its senior management, a report by the Department of Finance reveals, the Irish Times reported. The bank is to pay €2 million to the State in recompense for misleading Mr Lenihan and the Oireachtas on bonuses. Following a parliamentary question in November 2010, the bank insisted to Mr Lenihan that no performance-related bonuses had been paid in respect of the financial years ending in March 2009 and December 2009.