More than 180 hotel jobs in Tipperary and Cork have been secured with the sales of two well-known county hotels, The Anner, in Thurles, and the Midleton Park Hotel, in Cork.

Banks cannot auto-matically deny customers the right to return to a tracker rate mortgage if they switch temporarily to a fixed rate, the financial services ombudsman has confirmed.

A FORMER director of NCB Stockbrokers told the Mahon Tribunal yesterday he believed a £5,000 company payment made to Bertie Ahern 14 years ago was a political donation.