Gayle Killilea, former wife of bankrupt property baron Sean Dunne, this week appealed a 2019 U.S. jury verdict ordering her to pay nearly €20 million to the trustee of his US bankruptcy, the Irish Times reported. Killilea’s lawyer Patrick Fahey filed the appeal on Thursday with the US court of appeals for the second circuit in New York. She joined her ex-husband Mr Dunne who flied a separate appeal with the same court last year. Thomas Curran, a lawyer for the bankruptcy trustee, said on Friday he is confident the court will uphold the verdict.

Covid-adjusted unemployment in the Republic fell to 7 per cent in February on the back of the lifting of pandemic restrictions in late January. This was down from 7.8 per cent for the previous month and 27 per cent a year ago, the Irish Times reported. The headline rate includes people in receipt of the Government’s pandemic unemployment payment (PUP). The Central Statistics Office (CSO) estimated there was as many as 180,745 people classified as being either out of work or in receipt of the PUP last month.

It’s “unrealistic” that the European Central Bank will raise interest rates in June, Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf told the Financial Times, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank may stop net bond purchases in June or a few months later, after which it would raise rates, he told the newspaper, adding that there’s “a bit of difference” between its schedule and the one market participants are anticipating.

The Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI) is calling for a tax amnesty for hospitality firms to help them survive beyond the expected lifting of restrictions next month, the Irish Independent reported. It comes after insolvency experts predicted that more than 1,000 firms could close their doors from next year, once government supports end and pandemic debts are called in. Retailers and business organisations say small, domestic, independent firms will be worst hit.

Ireland will no longer require vaccinated arriving travellers to present a negative COVID-19 test, Prime Minister Micheál Martin said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. A government spokesman said the change would take effect on Thursday. Unvaccinated travellers will still be required to show a negative PCR test taken no more than 72 hours before arrival. Ireland introduced the testing measure a month ago to slow the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant. Omicron now accounts for almost all Irish infections, which have rocketed to record levels in the last two weeks.

Government tax receipts surged to a record €68.4 billion last year as consumer spending and employment rebounded from the pandemic at a sharper-than-expected rate, the Irish Times reported. Year-end exchequer returns, published by the Department of Finance, show tax receipts rose by almost 20 per cent or €11 billion last year despite the negative impact of restrictions to curb the coronavirus at the start of the year. The latest numbers pointed to an exchequer deficit of €7.4 billion for 2021, an improvement of nearly €5 billion on 2020.

Restaurateur Jay Bourke faces a battle to get court approval for a massive debt write-off, after a creditor owed €12.2m lodged an objection to the proposal, the Sunday World reported. Mr. Bourke has debts totaling €13.7m, and it emerged in November he intended to ask the High Court to sanction a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) that would wipe out around €12.5m of what he owes and allow him to keep his €1.4m family home in Rathmines, south Dublin.

A former member of the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC), the Dáil’s State spending watchdog, has asked it to investigate the payment of taxpayer-funded Covid supports to businesses that subsequently distributed cash to shareholders in the form of dividends, the Irish Times reported.

Ireland may benefit from another surge in corporation tax despite having to give up its prized 12.5 per cent rate, the chairman of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) has said, the Irish Times reported. Instead of losing €2 billion a year as the Government has forecast, Ireland could benefit directly from the recent global agreement on tax, which will involve a new minimum rate of 15 per cent, Ifac chairman Sebastian Barnes.

The liquidators of the Irish arm of failed German electronic payments group Wirecard are focusing their investigation into an almost €400 million fraud on four key areas, its creditors have been told, the Irish Times reported. In a report issued last week to creditors of Wirecard UK and Ireland Ltd, the joint liquidators, Ken Fennell and James Anderson of accountancy firm Deloitte, said they have completed two interim reports for the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) on the Dublin-based company’s collapse.