Plans to impose water charges twice as costly as today’s rates were drawn up by the Fianna Fáil-led government months before the troika bailout, despite repeated claims that the system was only created to comply with EU demands.

In a marathon testimony to the Banking Inquiry, Brian Cowen blamed the banks, the regulators, the global economic crisis, the opposition, a lack of power, a lack of choices and a range of other factors for the country’s woes.

Former Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who presided over the country’s slide into economic chaos, has blamed bankers as the main culprits.

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras lashed out at Greece’s creditors yesterday, accusing them of trying to “humiliate” Greeks, as he defied a drumbeat of warnings that Europe is preparing for his country to leave the euro.

Greece is willing to compromise to reach a deal with its EU/IMF creditors that is acceptable to both sides and is ready to negotiate until the end of June to achieve this, the Athens government said yesterday.

Finance chiefs from the G7 economic powers discussed ways to revive the faltering global recovery yesterday as the US leant on Europe to reach a deal to avert a Greek bankruptcy.

Greece defied its international creditors yesterday by sticking to “red lines” on pension and labour market reforms and urging lenders to give ground, dimming prospects of progress next week towards securing desperately needed financial aid.

The Greek government signalled the biggest concessions so far as crunch talks with lenders on a cash-for-reforms package started in earnest yesterday, but tried to assure leftist supporters it had not abandoned its anti-austerity principles.

Greece is not moving fast enough to draw up and implement structural reforms and there is limited time to prevent it running out of cash, European Commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said yesterday.

Greece must reach an outline funding agreement with its lenders at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on April 24, its finance minister told a Greek newspaper yesterday.

The Irish economy will post another year of strong growth in 2014 on the back of more robust levels of investment, combined with a recovery in domestic consumption, according to the ESRI’s spring quarterly economic commentary, which was launched yesterday.

For a relatively small country that has been totally mismanaged from an economic and financial perspective for decades, the eyes of the world are on Greece at the moment, writes Jim Power.

Greece’s leftist-led government said it will today submit a request to the eurozone to extend a “loan agreement” for up to six months, raising prospects of a last-minute deal to keep the heavily indebted country afloat.

Irish depositors would have lost all their money had the Government burned the bondholders, the ECB president has pointed out in a seven-page letter about the banking crisis.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) will hold its first auction of treasury bills in 2015 later this week. The agency will offer €500m of T-Bills with a six-month maturity on Thursday.

THIS week’s better-late-than-never announcement of a programme of quantitative easing by the ECB was a huge moment in the European integration project and the — so far — ineffective efforts to reinvigorate stalling economies, but tomorrow’s election in Greece may be even more significant.

There were a number of flaws with Ireland’s EU/IMF bailout programme, although the outcome was much more positive than if the country had tried to avoid official assistance, according to Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan.

Eurozone politicians are not obliged to rescue Greece as the country is no longer of systemic importance to the euro, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party has said.

NTMA to raise €15bn as bond auctions resume

Eurozone ministers are considering extending the Greek bailout, due to end this year, by six months to the middle of 2015, to allow Athens more time to comply with the conditions for the disbursement of the remaining money.

After the notorious ‘attack’ on our Tanaiste, Joan Burton, last week, maybe we Irish will lose our reputation as the least ‘back-boned’ of all the recent IMF/EU/ECB victims?

There was no smoking gun in the ECB letters released yesterday that would strengthen the Government’s hand in looking for a bank recapitalisation.

Fianna Fáil has said that the ECB were wrong to force Ireland into a bailout.

The ECB saw far less demand than expected yesterday for its new four-year loans to banks, raising doubts about a stimulus package it hopes will stave off deflation and revive the eurozone economy.

There will be no giveaway budget in October despite much better-than-expected exchequer figures for the first eight months of the year, the Government has warned.

-Merkel adviser insists collapse was of Ireland’s own making

Inspectors from Greece’s EU/IMF lenders said yesterday that they had concluded a short, interim check-up of the country’s performance under its bailout and will return for a more comprehensive audit in late September.

Economic optimism among Irish-based investors has hit a four-year high, with 82% saying they are confident the economy will continue growing and a similar percentage upbeat about their own financial stability, according to a new survey.

The NTMA has reduced the lumpy debt repayments falling due in 2016 through a combination of a bond buyback and bond switch with a combined value of €2,036.5m.

Tapping into voter anger is a good election strategy, but the consequences of mere populist policies for the economy could be very serious, writes Business Editor John Walsh.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said he would like a new secretary general of the department in place by the end of July.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan warned against the dangers of reform fatigue but said the eurozone must plough ahead with fiscal consolidation and measures to improve competitiveness.

There was a discrepancy of €101m in the reported Exchequer returns for March, as income tax returns were erroneously classified as Vat, said the Department of Finance.

Green REIT plans to raise €400m through a share placement to take advantage of further investment opportunities in the commercial property market.

Admissions about the crisis cock-up are all very well but what have we learned, asks Kyran Fitzgerald.

A conference to discuss what's next for Ireland since our exit from the EU/IMF bailout will get underway in Dublin today.

The bailed-out Bank of Cyprus is reviewing its restructuring plans in a move that could result in billions of euro of its troubled assets being put into a “bad bank”, chief executive John Hourican said.

Merrill Lynch & told the Government in 2008 it would cost €16.4bn at most to rescue Irish banks, a quarter of the eventual bill for bailing out its financial system.

Almost a year after the European Court of Justice ruled in their favour and five years after they lost their jobs, former workers at Waterford Crystal have still not received tens of thousands of euro in pension entitlements to which the court said they were entitled.

Billionaire investor George Soros has warned that the eurozone faces a 25-year deflationary slump if the banking problem is not sorted.

Your stark newspaper headline “Coillte sale ‘crucial’ to troika plan” casts a shadow over recent declarations, such as: “Ireland has regained its economic sovereignty”, “The country has successfully exited the bailout”, and “The troika has left our shores”.

The European Central Bank is still under the impression that the Irish forestry body, Coillte, will be privatised as part of the troika programme for government.

The founder of the anti- austerity “Ballyhea Says No” weekly marches has announced he will run as an Ireland South candidate in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

It is far to soon for the Government to make a commitment on tax cuts in next October’s budget because of the ongoing uncertainty over growth figures, a troika source has said.