Ryanair forced to issue embarrassing climb-down over claims that the company would offer €15 transatlantic flights.

Michael O’Leary was forced to issue a statement to the stock exchange clarifying that no such plans had been approved by Ryanair's board.

He said that the airline had "f--ked up" and that the statement on incredibly cheap transatlantic flights was "a miscommunication."

The statement read, "In the light of recent press coverage, the board of Ryanair Holdings Plc wishes to clarify that it has not considered or approved any transatlantic project and does not intend to do so."

It now seems that the company is still exploring the idea - but it is likely that transatlantic flights would be offered by a stand-alone business that would be separate to Ryanair.

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Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras has agreed to speed-up the drafting of Greece's reform plans following a three-hour meeting with the leaders of France and Germany, the president of the ECB, and the head of the Eurogroup.

He also said that as part of the bailout extension deal he will not be forced to sign any legislation that will deepen Greece's recession.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the country still has to honour the commitments that it agreed to in the initial deal that it signed in February to extend the country's bailout.

Irish officials have been critical of the Syriza-led Greek government's approach to its debt negotiations. Taoiseach Enda Kenny commented on the on-going negotiations yesterday:

“People are very encouraged to give Greece support and to give it its time and space to come forward with sustainable solutions, but there’s a difference between political argument and disagreement and threats of releasing jihadists and terrorists in Europe. That’s not acceptable.”

These comments came after leader of the junior far-right coalition party in the Greek government, Panos Kammenos said that he would release "millions of economic migrants" and jihadists from detention centres into Europe if austerity measures were pushed through by EU officials.

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Ireland's Government decided to close the so-called 'Double Irish' loophole after the Tax Strategy Group warned that it was damaging Ireland's credibility.

The Tax Strategy Group is made up of representatives from the Department of Finance, the Department of the Taoiseach, Revenue and other financial bodies. It took particular note of criticisms levied by US president Barack Obama.

The controversial loop-hole allowed profits to be transferred into other regions, minimising the corporate tax bills of multinational companies who set-up in Ireland.

It had also attracted criticisms from Ireland's partners in the EU.

Tax Strategy Group papers from Budget 2015 that have been published by the Department of Finance read: “Until quite recently, the precise mechanics of the ‘double-Irish’ structure have not been widely understood. Over the last 12 months, however, there has been an increased focus on the role of Ireland’s company-residence rules in relation to the structure.”

The document deals specifically with Mr Obama's public criticism of the loop-hole: "Most recently, Ireland was singled out and referred to by US president Obama in his criticism of the practice of US companies ‘inverting’ or changing their nationality for tax purposes."

It continues: "While Ireland is by no means the only location where US companies are inverting into, the focus on Ireland in both international political and media circles is unhelpful."

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Planned merger of two of the world’s largest cement companies, Holcim and Lafarge seems to be back on track and will probably be confirmed today.

The deal threatened to become unstuck in recent weeks over disagreements regarding the value of each company, and who would run the merged entity.

The deal is of critical interest to Irish cement/building products group, CRH - it plans to purchase many of the global, cement-producing assets the merging companies have to sell to meet competition requirements.

CRH shareholders gave their approval for a potential €6.5bn transaction yesterday.

Assuming the CRH deal goes ahead, CRH will be taking on 15,000 additional employees across nearly 700 sites in 11 different countries

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Setanta Sports owner Mickey O’ Rourke has told Irish Times this morning it plans to launch four or five HD channels from next Autumn and a new service that will allow online playback of the station’s channels

The new initiative is part of an overall €4m investment by the company which also includes its recent rights deal with UEFA to cover all games in both Champions League and Europa League for three seasons.

Mr O’ Rourke said Setanta was modestly profitable during 2014 as revenues grew by more than 20% to €30m.