Labour leader Brendan Howlin has accused his former Cabinet colleague Minister Michael Noonan of showing contempt to the Dail.

Lloyds Bank said the UK had sold its last remaining stake in the bank, making the lender the first to re-emerge from British state ownership in a symbolic step for the country’s recovering banking sector.

A woman “struggling to get by” after her husband “abandoned” her and their children fears she will lose her family home if a bank gets a €65,000 judgment against her, a High Court judge has said.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan and the Government’s banking market advisers will have to show their hand very soon, if they are to sell up to €3bn of shares in AIB in May or June.

The British government said yesterday it has further reduced its stake in Lloyds Banking Group, a day after the bank posted its highest profit since before the 2007 to 2009 global financial crisis.

An EU-wide stress test suggests that our banks are not in fact on top of their game as they would have us believe.

Former minister of state at the Department of Finance, Brian Hayes, has urged the Government to quicken the sale of Allied Irish Banks.

Eurozone banks should be encouraged to keep more of their profits rather than pay dividends, to bolster their capital, and finance new loans, the head of research of the Bank of International Settlements said yesterday.

The State valued Allied Irish Banks at €11.7bn at the end of last year, but any decision about scrapping or going ahead with an initial sale of shares in the bank is likely to be frozen for many months in the absence of a new government.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group and the UK government have agreed to scrap the state’s rights to preferential dividends, paving the way for the bank to return capital to shareholders as early as next year.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

Allied Irish Banks is one of a number of objectors against property developer Johnny Ronan’s plans for a €200 million office block in Dublin 4.

Bernard Byrne, the new chief executive at Allied Irish Banks, confirmed a so-called capital restructure is at an advanced stage, saying that the lender — bailed out at huge cost by Irish taxpayers — will be highly attractive when it returns to the market.

A damages action involving almost 300 investors in property funds promoted by AIB has been admitted to the fast track Commercial Court list.

The Government’s ownership of Allied Irish Banks (AIB) and Permanent TSB and its 14% stake in Bank of Ireland are all “valuable” assets which will repay taxpayers the huge sums they pumped into the lenders during the crisis, Finance Minister Michael Noonan has pledged.

The total stock of loans advanced by banks to Irish households continues to contract and has now slumped to levels last recorded almost 11 years ago in 2004, Central Bank figures published yesterday showed.

The world’s largest accounting firms were yesterday cleared of blame for their audits of banks here as the country hurtled toward financial disaster in 2008.

A major report has cleared the external audit firms of any substantial failings in the audits carried out of the banks here on the eve of the financial crash in 2008.

Allied Irish Banks as well as its Government owner yesterday put the focus on how much the bank will be worth in an impending shares sale.

The row between then taoiseach Brian Cowen and his finance minister, Brian Lenihan, on the night of the bank guarantee concerned whether or not to include Anglo Irish Bank in the cover, the banking inquiry will be told on Thursday.

Business and consumer groups have called on the Government to launch a probe into the grip that Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland have over Irish banking and to consider the possibility of breaking up AIB to boost competition.

There is great concern at present from both consumers and industry professionals about the insurance industry in Ireland.

Bank chiefs are set to be quizzed today on how they propose to offer families with variable rate mortgages a reprieve or otherwise face the threat of Government action.

At first glance, the painting ‘On the Run, War of Independence’ by Sean Keating appears to depict a volunteer checking his mobile phone.

A COLLABORATION between the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork and Allied Irish Banks will bring some of the best of Irish art created in the last century to London for a prestigious exhibition in May.

The leader of the Labour Party Joan Burton has vowed to bring full employment back to Ireland in three years.

The financial services firm appointed by Finance Minister Michael Noonan this week to advise on the capital restructuring of Allied Irish Banks has received more than €7m from the State since the banking crisis.

The Government has said it could turn a profit on the record funds pumped into three surviving bailed-out banks.

Permanent TSB Group Holdings, Ireland’s smallest state-owned bank, failed European Central Bank stress tests under the adverse scenario being assessed by regulators, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Irish state-owned mortgage lender Permanent TSB (PTSB) has appointed Deutsche Bank to advise it on its future return to private ownership, the bank said yesterday.

The savings to the exchequer of refinancing Ireland’s IMF loans could be as much as €125m higher than initially thought.

Leading Irish banks are intentionally manipulating the property market to improve their financial positions ahead of planned stress tests by the European Central Bank later this year.