Irish inflation hit a 10-year high in August, driven by a rise in the cost of transport, housing, restaurants and hotels, the Irish Times reported. Central Statistics Office (CSO) data shows consumer prices rose 2.8 per cent in the 12 months to the end of August, the sharpest level of price growth seen since November 2011. The latest figures come amid a series of warnings about rising costs for businesses in several sectors. The acceleration in prices is connected to the resumption of economic activity after lockdown, supply chain blockages, higher oil prices and Brexit.

The High Court has overturned Personal Insolvency Arrangements (PIAs) that would have allowed a married couple write off a debt of about €250,000 owed to a bank, the Irish Times reported. In a detailed judgement, Mr. Justice Mark Sanfey upheld EBS DAC’s objections to the Circuit Court approving PIAs in respect of Niall McKiernan, a Garda sergeant, and his wife, Karen Fitzpatrick, a secondary school head teacher. The judge said the PIAs in this instance were premature, and unfairly prejudicial to the interests of the objecting creditor.

Almost a quarter of firms that received funding from Microfinance Ireland (MFI) over the past decade have ceased trading, according to a spending review carried out by the Department of Public Expenditure, the Irish Times reported. MFI was established to deliver the Government’s Microenterprise Loan Fund. It works closely with Local Enterprise Offices to provide loans to small businesses. The Department of Public Expenditure published a series of spending reviews on Thursday, which included an analysis of the impact of Covid-19 on State supported lending.

Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta has agreed a new €500 million revolving credit facility with three banks and has announced the disposal of its Brazilian businesses, the Irish Times reported. No financial details have been disclosed on the sale of the Brazilian subsidiaries to Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV. The transaction is expected to close shortly. Aryzta said the new credit facility, which is expected to be used by early October, is underwritten by Credit Suisse, Rabobank and UBS. It replaces the group’s current €800 million facility, which maters in September 2022.

Post-Brexit trade frictions have “significantly altered” freight traffic between the Republic and Britain and sparked a steep rise in volumes to and from Ireland and other European Union members, an Irish Government agency report noted on Thursday, the Irish Times reported. The introduction of checks on some goods since Britain left the EU’s trading orbit on December 31st cut imports from Britain by 35 per cent in the first five months of 2021 while the number of shipping routes to mainland Europe more than doubled.

The State’s Covid-adjusted unemployment rate fell to a pandemic low of 13.5 per cent in July, down from 16.2 per cent the previous month, as restrictions on hospitality continue to be loosened, the Irish Times reported. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) had published figures last week, putting the jobless rate at 14.4 per cent but later pulled the release, saying the figures had been compiled incorrectly. The agency said the results for July published today replace the estimates which had been published on August 5th.

Shareholders in Mallinckrodt, the Dublin-based but U.S.-run drugmaker in the middle of a bankruptcy reorganization, are being urged by a leading corporate advisory firm to vote against some directors as a parting rebuke over its handling of the U.S. opioid crisis and executive pay, the Irish Times reported. Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy in Delaware last October as the company was overwhelmed by lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing opioids. The company is pursuing a U.S.

The row over insurers’ failure to pay out on business interruption cover dominates the latest set of rulings announced by the Financial Services Ombudsman, the Irish Times reported. The digest of decisions – the sixth published by the ombudsman’s office – gives summaries of 21 decisions issued during 2020 and 2021, of which 12 relate to the investigation of complaints relating to business interruption insurance. “To date, we have received 1,051 complaints arising from the circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic,” the ombudsman, Ger Deering, said.

Permanent or long-term debt relief arrangements on mortgages “have substantially higher success rates” than temporary arrangements and are in the best interest of both borrowers and lenders, a new research paper published by the Central Bank has concluded, the Irish Times reported. “This is particularly true during a crisis such as that in Ireland after the 2008 crash, where borrower income shocks were deep and long-lasting, and negative equity was widespread,” the paper’s authors Claire Labonne, Fergal McCann and Terry O’Malley have written.