The International Monetary Fund has warned the Irish Government that Central Bank independence should be enhanced, and that it needs to address challenges that the bank faces retaining insurance supervisors.
The focus of the report is the insurance sector, and it said that good progress had been made in updating regulations.
While there is no evidence of political or commercial interference in the workings of the Central Bank, the IMF argues that the legal layout of the bank’s governance arrangements “may potentially introduce political considerations” that could compromise the independence of the bank.
Ireland's Central Bank and the Government recently openly disagreed over the introduction of new mortgage regulations.
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The European Central Bank is reported to be concerned about the deteriorating relationship between the Greek government and its central bank.
The Syriza-led government has accused the Bank of Greece governor, Yannis Stournaras of attempting to undermine its authority by leaking sensitive information to the media while Greece tries to negotiate a new deal with its international creditors.
Mr Stournaras has denied these accusations. He served as finance minister in the previous Greek government.
ECB sources have told Bloomberg that they are concerned about the situation.
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Permanent TSB's chief executive, Jeremy Masding has told an Oireachtas committee that PTSB is not taking advantage of customers and charging too much for its standard variable mortgage rates.
“We are impacted by the high volume of mortgage defaults we have in Ireland. It is an unfortunate fact that people who do pay their mortgages here, do have to pay a bit extra to make up for the historically high number of people who can’t or won’t,” Mr Masding told the committee.
He added that the bank is unlikely to cut these rates anytime soon.
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Revenue targets have been reduced for UTV Ireland - a trading statement restates that UTV Ireland has had a slower start to the year than anticipated where it expects losses of about €8.5m this year.
The station stated that this was principally down to delays in securing its position on the electronic programme guides of the main TV platforms with knock-on impact on advertising revenues.
This morning’s statement says “It is still very early in the life of UTV Ireland and there is considerable volatility in the performance. Given that volatility, we think it would be appropriate to reduce our revenue forecasts for 2015 by £2.5m sterling.
It adds that “the strategic logic of UTV Ireland in creating leading television operations throughout Ireland remains clear.”
UTV group revenues rose by 7 percent during the first quarter to £29.7m; revenues from radio in Ireland were unchanged on a constant currency basis.
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Survey by the Irish Association of Pension Funds reveals that 77 percent of respondents believe they are not saving enough for a reasonable standard of living in retirement – with nearly a quarter saying they are not saving at all.
Interestingly, 70 percent of people say they would be in favour of the Government introducing some type of mandatory pension scheme to effectively force more people to save for their retirement.
According to the survey the age group most worried about pension under provision are in the 35-54 age group – where just 20 percent feel they are saving enough to provide a reasonable standard of living when they retire.
