The Irish High Court has refused to approve a Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) for a businessman with over €3m in debts, the Irish Examiner reported. Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said that he could not approve the PIA for Daniel Drew. In his judgement, the judge said the court had no jurisdiction to entertain an application to approve the PIA, which had been rejected at a meeting of Mr Drew's creditors in 2019. In his judgement, the judge said that Mr Drew operates a petrol and convenience store in Turner's Cross, Cork.

Ireland could face a sharp rise in company insolvencies as government pandemic supports are wound down, and a higher rate of company failure could persist for some time, according to a new paper from the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC), the Irish Times reported. It says that the Government faces a difficult balancing act as the pandemic supports are wound down, with the risk that moving too quickly could push some viable companies to the wall.

Boom-era property player Bernard McNamara’s multi-million euro pension pot is protected from his creditors following an EU court ruling, the Irish Times reported. The British high court declared Mr McNamara bankrupt in 2012 on his own application. He was one of many Irish developers who opted to bankrupt themselves in the UK, where the bankruptcy period was one year, rather than in the Republic, where it was 12 years at the time. The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that creditors cannot get access to an insurance policy that was part of his Irish-registered pension.

Two accountants appointed to find a way forward through examinership for two insolvent building firms are to investigate a number of matters of concern, a judge has ruled. It is thought to be the first joint examinership in Ireland, the Irish Independent reported. Judge John O’Connor, after appointing chartered accountants Joe Walsh and John Healy as joint examiners to Trinity Homes Limited and a related company, Yeronga Ltd, noted they would review a dividend payment of almost €1m by Trinity Homes to a former director.

Two Irish building companies involved in the construction of rural housing have been given the protection of the courts from their creditors, the Irish Times reported. Trinity Homes Ltd (THL), and a related company, Yeronga Ltd, are involved in the construction of new housing units primarily in rural parts of the State, including Wexford, Tipperary, Kerry and Meath. Many of the units have been built for local authorities. The companies have also constructed units for the housing charity Cluid.

The number of the Irish citizens receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) has fallen by over half million or 87 per cent since the peak of the crisis, the Irish Times reported. Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show there were 77,806 workers in receipt of the payment at the end of last month, down from 605,671 in the first week of May last year. This corresponds to a fall of 527,865 or 87 per cent when compared to peak.

Irish government ministers have met to dust off contingency plans in case disagreements between Britain and the European Union trigger major trade disruption, deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The European Union last week said that Britain had made no move to seek a compromise on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland and cautioned London against triggering emergency unilateral provisions Anger, tangle and trouble: Is another Brexit showdown looming? in the Brexit deal.

The Irish High Court has approved a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) allowing a woman to write off approximately €4.2m in debt owed to financial institutions, the Independent reported. Mr. Justice Mark Sanfey approved the PIA for 54-year-old Assumpta Gaffney, an accounts administrator with a construction firm, who is married with two dependent children. Under the terms of the PIA, Mrs. Gaffney will retain her family home at Mountain Lodge, Ballyleigh, Waterfall, Co Cork, for which she will continue to make mortgage repayments.

The Irish commercial property market has been “phenomenally busy” in the past two months, with the ability of investors and occupiers to travel to undertake property inspections having had a “transformative effect” on it, according to a new report, the Irish Times reported. Commercial property specialist CBRE today published their final bimonthly report for 2021 on Monday, which provides an overview of trends and transactions in all sectors of Ireland’s commercial property market as the year begins to draw to a close.

The Irish government has moved in Finance Bill 2021 to close off a potential loophole in laws introduced during the summer to impose a 10 per cent stamp duty on bulk buyers of 10 or more houses within a one-year period, the Irish Times reported. The Bill, published on Thursday, seeks to insert a clarification into law that the stamp duty also applies to the “indirect” acquisition of a house by way of, for example, the purchase of shares in a company that owns a property.