Ireland's main opposition party Fine Gael on Friday said the next government would be forced to "unilaterally" restructure the debt of Irish banks if agreement cannot be reached with Europe on senior bond holders sharing the cost of recapitalizing the country's insolvent banks, The Wall Street Journal reported. Fine Gael, the favourite to form the next coalition government, said ideally senior bond holders in nationalized banks, such as Anglo Irish Bank Corp. and Irish Nationwide Building Society, would be forced to share the burden through a Europe-wide framework.

A dispute over loan security with their bank prevented the Taggart brothers from bringing up to £70 million of new capital into their construction business and ultimately led to its collapse, according to Michael Taggart, who confirmed at the weekend that he and his brother John are suing Ulster Bank, the Irish Times reported.

The National Asset Management Agency has lost a legal challenge in the Supreme Court taken by property investor Paddy McKillen to stop the transfer of €2.1 billion of loans to the State’s “bad bank”, the Irish Times reported. The seven-judge court unanimously allowed his appeal – overturning a High Court ruling – after it found Nama had never at any stage made a legally valid decision to acquire Mr McKillen’s loans. The Supreme Court ruled the decision taken by Nama to acquire his loans was taken before the agency was legally set up and no subsequent act changed this.

Ireland's parliament was dissolved Tuesday for a long-awaited Feb. 25 election as Prime Minister Brian Cowen exited the political stage defending his management of the nation's plunge toward bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported. Cowen declared a formal end to his government two months after he was forced to negotiate a euro67.5 billion ($92 billion) loan package from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, a measure he had insisted Ireland did not need. Cowen told a silent, somber parliament that his 2 1/2 years as prime minister "have been a time of great trial and test.

The Sunday Tribune newspaper has been placed into receivership after its main financial backer, Independent News & Media (IN&M), withdrew its support from the company yesterday, the Irish Times reported. The move puts the jobs of 43 staff at the newspaper in doubt although IN&M has agreed to pay staff for four more weeks to give the receiver – Jim Luby of McStay Luby – an opportunity to secure an investor for the title. It was not clear yesterday if Mr Luby would have sufficient financial resources to publish the newspaper this Sunday.

An amendment to the legislation covering the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) published yesterday will allow for the transfer of up to 20,000 additional small loans from Bank of Ireland and AIB to the agency, the Irish Times reported. The National Asset Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2011 provides a legislative framework for the transfer to Nama of land and development loans previously excluded on the basis that they were valued below a threshold of €20 million. The removal of this threshold was agreed with the EU and IMF in November as part of the bailout package.

Loan losses at the banks may be “a little larger” than was expected under the new regulator’s first round of stress tests last year, governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, has said, the Irish Times reported. The Central Bank will complete the second round of capital stress tests on the banks by the end of March. The liquidity of the banks will also be tested in this round. To ensure the banks are fully protected against further shocks, Prof Honohan has insisted they “overcapitalise” above a new core tier one capital ratio of 12 per cent.

Allied Irish Banks has made a gain of €1.4 billion from a voluntary offer to buy back debt for 30 cent in the euro from subordinated bondholders. This will go towards the €6.1 billion in capital that it must raise before the end of next month, the Irish Times reported. The bank is purchasing about €2 billion of the bonds, paying a 70 per cent discount in an offer that was taken up by about 45 per cent of subordinated bondholders – a lower rate than expected.

A building firm that was rescued from examinership three years ago has been put into receivership by the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) and Ulster Bank, The Post.ie reported. McEnaney Construction, which is controlled by developer John McCann, has debts of almost €75 million. Nama has taken over the company’s debts to Irish Nationwide and made a joint move with Ulster Bank to appoint Tom Kavanagh of Kavanagh Fennell as receiver in recent days. The Co Louth building firm announced plans in 2006 to build the M1 Euro Park, a €200 million development on a 90-acre site outside Dundalk.

Property investors have been granted a reprieve in the Finance Bill, with the restriction of section 23-type tax reliefs being postponed until at least 2012, the Irish Times reported. Landlords have been lobbying hard since the phased abolition of property-based legacy reliefs was unveiled in last December’s Budget. The proposal that section 23 tax relief would be ring-fenced for use against rental income from the property giving rise to that relief, as opposed to all Irish rental income as was previously the case, proved particularly controversial.