IFG shares fell more than 9% on the back of the Dublin-listed financial services group shelving plans to sell its financial advisory division, with the costs of keeping the business also putting paid to shareholder hopes of the award of a special dividend payment.

AIB will cut its standard variable mortgage rate twice more this year, to below 3%, and while Permanent TSB will cut in the coming weeks, Bank of Ireland will hold firm against “political pressures”, Investec Ireland has predicted.

The country’s chronic housing shortage is set to persist and push property prices even higher while, at the same time, the Central Bank’s mortgage rules continue to restrict lending to ‘abnormally low’ levels despite a pick-up in April.