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.

The decision to exclude customers in arrears from new price plans announced today by the ESB has been criticised.

WORRIED bank employees and the Consumers’ Association of Ireland have called on the Government to bring forward its plans to pump billions of euro into the country’s two remaining top banks.

A LEADING consumer advocate has urged credit-card customers who cannot pay off their debts at the end of the month to reconsider having a card at all.