THE cost of Ireland’s bailout will be cut by over €1 billion a year as other lenders have indicated they will follow the EU’s lead and reduce the interest rate on the entire €67bn loan.

THE European Commission has approved state aid of up to €13.1 billion for the merged Allied Irish Bank and Educational Building Society to ensure it is sufficiently capitalised to meet stress test requirements.

MOBILE phone operators who charge customers three times more for their calls when abroad are facing a raft of new rules to force them to drop their prices.

THE hidden scandal of how Irish employers take advantage of foreign domestic workers without work permits has been exposed by an EU study.

EMPLOYERS are pushing to dismantle the structure that regulates overtime and Sunday working for lower-paid workers in the catering, hotel and construction industry.

PRISONS are overcrowded in more than half the EU, including Ireland, while a quarter of prisoners are awaiting trial and more than half in some countries are foreign nationals.

IRELAND intends to maintain the target of contributing 0.7% of gross national product for development aid by 2015, despite the economic crisis, Jan O’Sullivan, Minister of State for Trade and Development, said.

IRELAND’S focus remains firmly on getting a cut in the interest rate on its bailout, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said as eurozone ministers agreed the details of a €78 billion loan for Portugal at a lower rate of interest.

GREECE began negotiations to boost its bailout with fellow eurozone finance ministers in Brussels last night clouded by the arrest of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York on charges of attempted rape.

PORTUGAL’S outgoing government and opposition parties appear to have accepted the terms of a €78 billion EU/IMF bailout which is likely to come at a lower interest rate than Ireland’s.