The disclosure, which comes as a major embarrassment to the public service, was made this afternoon.

Revenue said the Houses of the Oireachtas Service was among 131 individual taxpayers, companies or bodies which had made substantial settlements – totalling €23.25m – in the first three months of the year. advertisement

The steady drip-feed of global stimulus also kept world shares inching towards an all-time high as another record close for Wall Street and a three-year high for Asia left them heading for a fifth day of back-to-back gains.

European stocks were happy to take a breather in early trading after gaining almost 10 percent in the last few months, leaving the momentum from last week’s ECB cut in interest rates …

Individual mortgages would not be affected if the accounts – which were bundled together by the bank to be used to borrow on the markets – were taken over by bondholders acting through trustee Deutsche Bank.

But homeowners would get a letter telling them of the change.

Ulster Bank borrowed against the Irish mortgages during the boom through a process called securitisation.

Anglo lent Clarendon – co-owned by McKillen and Tony Leonard – around $135m to buy the building in 2006.

The purchase price was around $170m.

Most of McKillen’s loans to Anglo were bought out by US private equity group Colony Capital as part of the sale of the Project Pebble portfolio last year. “Everything is paid off and gone and out of Anglo. This is the end of it,” according …

Irish consumers and visitors are helping to spur activity in the services sector, with a gauge of activity pointing to a “blistering” pace of expansion.

The Investec Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) touched 61.7 in May, with any reading above 50 indicating expansion of activity and any figure below 50 showing contraction.

The gauge covers hotels and restaurants, transport and storage, post and telecommunications, financial intermediation, renting and business activities.