Champions St Michael’s College eased into the Leinster Schools Senior Cup semi-finals with a comprehensive win over Gonzaga College at Donnybrook in a repeat of last year's final.

The motorsport careers of Derry’s Josh McErlean and Kildare’s James Roe Jnr. received a major boost in terms of finance and prestige after they were honoured at the MIS Motorsport Champions of Irish Motorsport awards ceremony at the Citywest Hotel, Dublin yesterday.

St Michael’s College produced a remarkable final-quarter fightback at Donnybrook to claim the Leinster Schools Junior Cup title at the expense of previous champions Blackrock College.

Advocates for debt-saddled homeowners said they are shocked by official figures showing a rise in new early-stage mortgage arrears.

Official figures have shown a second successive quarterly increase in homeowners falling into early-stage arrears, with one in 10 households now behind in their mortgage payments.

Allegations of an AIB whistleblower who says the bank misled regulators in dealing with corporate loans in arrears raises far wider concerns beyond the specifics of the case, the country’s leading expert on banking and corporate governance said.

Motorsport

The Government is continuing to break its own rules on appointments to state boards, with the majority of positions filled by people selected by ministers without going through a public advertisement process.

The majority of appointments to state boards in the past year were made by ministers without being advertised, despite Government promises to the contrary.

CIARÁN MATHEWSON goaled in the 70th minute as Donegal snatched victory in the Lory Meagher Cup final, having lost the previous two finals.

Donegal 2-12 Tyrone 0-17

Tyrone 0-6 Derry 2-13

Tyrone 1-15 South Down 0-11

IT is almost unimaginable the fear 13-year-old Jordan Rice would have felt as the car he and his family were in was pummelled by a wall of water. But, as it began engulfing the vehicle, Jordan, who could not swim himself, insisted his younger brother, Blake, 10, be rescued first.

JUST when you thought our sleaze-splattered banking sector could hardly get much murkier, up pops a money mystery worthy of Hercule Poirot.

FORMER internal auditor at AIB Eugene McErlean has accepted an apology from the bank’s top brass, adding that he has moved on from feeling any animosity towards the bank.

AIB’s stockbrokers breached money laundering rules but did not break the law by share deals using firms based in offshore tax havens, it was claimed today.

GOODBODY Stockbroker routed its clients’ money through a Caribbean tax haven in an effort to save millions of euro in stamp duty, according to the Financial Regulator.

The Chairman and CEO of the Financial Regulatory Authority will have a chance later today to respond to allegations that the Regulator knew about overcharging at AIB in 2001.

WHAT does the Financial Regulator have in common with one of the world’s most famous dress designers, a bishop of France’s Grand Siècle and Scary Spice?

THE Central Bank reported AIB and Goodbody Stockbrokers for suspected money laundering in 2001 and was not involved in any cover-up, the Financial Regulator has said.

EXPERTS yesterday said it was too early to say what sanctions, if any, face AIB and Goodbody following Mr McErlean claims that he raised with the Financial Regulator the fact that Goodbody had arranged for all of its purchases of AIB shares for clients to go through what he believed was an illegal process.

EUGENE McERLEAN, a solicitor by profession, joined AIB in 1991 and became group internal auditor in 1997.

AIB issued a curt one-line statement last night in response to the spate of damaging allegations made by Eugene McErlean.

IS it too much to hope that we’ve had a Ben Dunne moment? Is it too much to hope that former internal auditor in AIB Eugene McErlean’s allegations to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Economic and Regulatory Affairs yesterday will have the same effect as the unintended consequences Ben Dunne’s throwaway remarks about political funding had all those years ago?

A GERMAN beer company’s name was used as a front for the extraordinary handling of millions of euro belonging to AIB shareholders which was routed through tax havens in South Pacific and Caribbean islands, it was claimed yesterday.

A post-mortem examination on the body of a baby girl found on the outskirts of Belfast earlier this week has established she suffered a head injury, police said tonight.