The country's banks have agreed to cut variable mortgage interest rates to offer customers the opportunity to switch to more favourable fixed rate plans.
According to the Irish Independent, the Finance Minister will announce that the long-running dispute with banks over the interest paid on home loans has come to an end.
It follows a series of meetings with the lenders in recent weeks - it is reported that these new arrangements will be in place by July.
As it stands Irish borrowers are charged up to 350 euro per month more than the EU average.
Variable rates are likely to be cut by around 0.25 percent.
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Denis O'Brien and the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation have been granted orders by the High Court to prevent RTÉ from broadcasting a news report about Mr O'Brien's personal banking arrangements.
The details of Mr Justice Donald Binchy's decision cannot be reported until his written judgment is redacted of sensitive information next week.
The report related to IBRC's handling of large debtors, one of whom was Mr O'Brien, and a letter the businessman sent in 2013 to the bank's special liquidator Kieran Wallace about the terms of his loan facilities.
There were no allegations of wrongdoing against Mr O'Brien, but he claimed revelations about his private banking would damage his commercial and banking interests.
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Tadhg Gunnell, a former head of finance and compliance at the liquidated stockbroking firm, Bloxhams has been disqualified by the Central Bank from managing a financial firm for ten years and fined €105,000.
The disqualification is the longest ever imposed on an individual by the bank and the fine, the second highest personal fine, topped only by the €200,000 penalty on Sean Quinn in 2008 for breaches of the Insurance Act.
As it happens Mr Gunnell’s fine has been waived by the bank as he was declared bankrupt by the High Court earlier this year.
In a statement, the Bank said the penalties imposed on Mr Gunnell related to the misrepresentation of Bloxham’s true regulatory capital position in the years from 2007 to 2012, when the firm was liquidated following discovery of financial irregularities – in particular a €5.3m gap in its accounts that had been covered up and missed by Bloxham’s auditors, Deloitte and by Central Bank itself over a five-year period.
The Central Bank’s own investigation into the Bloxham affair is ongoing; it’s still not clear whether it will impose any penalties on other partners of the firm at the time, many of whom now work elsewhere in the Dublin market.
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The Mandate trade union claims over 100 jobs are to go at Dunnes Stores in Gorey. It is understood there has been a dispute between Dunnes and the shopping centre that the branch is located in.
The union says workers were called to a meeting and told of the outlet's "immediate closure."
Dunnes Stores has not commented on the situation.
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A new list of Ireland's 1,000 biggest companies has been published by The Irish Times - predictably the top ten consists mainly of multinationals:
1) Microsoft 2) CRH 3) Google 4) Medtronic Plc 5) DCC 6) Ingersoll Rand 7) Actavis 8) Dell Ireland 9) Smurfit Kappa 10) Oracle
Facebook rose nine places to 28, while Tesco dropped ten to 30. For the first time since the crash, Bank of Ireland, AIB and Ulster Bank all return to the list.
