Low-paid public servants could be as much as €2,000 better off by the end of 2017, former Fifa vice president Jack Warner left jail in an ambulance, what will the Marriage Referendum mean for children and schools and the top 10 hot trends of the 2015 Championship. These are some of the latest and most read news stories on irishexaminer.com this morning.

THERE was little enough unexpected in the evidence given by former financial regulator Patrick Neary to the Banking Inquiry yesterday. 

It wasn’t me. No, no, it wasn’t me. It was the banks, the Central Bank, the ‘system’ — they were to blame for not stopping that unholy mess we now know as the financial crash.

Former financial regulator Patrick Neary has pointed the “finger of responsibility” at government, the Central Bank, financial institutions, the ESRI, and Europe for what politicians have said was his own failure to do his job.

Former financial regulator Patrick Neary still believes all banks were “solvent” on the night of the bank guarantee, despite admitting that his repeat of the view in an infamous Prime Time interview three days later was “optimistic”.

Ireland’s former banking regulator has said that the country's financial regulatory system had "failed" in the crisis which brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy.

The Government was warned two months before the September 2008 bank guarantee that Seán Quinn’s debts to Anglo Irish Bank were enough to bring down the financial sector.

More than €12.2bn in junior bondholder debt was only included in the 2008 bank guarantee because Bank of Ireland insisted it would damage the economy if it was left unprotected.

The mystery over why Anglo and Irish Nationwide were included in the blanket bank guarantee deepened after another senior banker said yesterday that he advised the Government not to include the stricken firms in the deal.

Former taoisigh Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen, along with senior officials from the Department of Finance during the Celtic Tiger era, will be grilled by the Oireachtas banking inquiry in July.

A report on the health of the Irish banking system — commissioned by the financial regulator in 2008 and relied upon by taoiseach Brian Cowen to justify the bank guarantee — drastically underestimated the extent of losses that would be made.

Former financial regulator Patrick Neary, who, days after the bank guarantee, defended a lack of oversight in the sector and claimed the public’s money was “safe”, has been directed to attend a key banking inquiry grilling in May.

Ireland's Central Bank snubbed warnings from a top figure in the country's leading economic think-tank eight years ago about the dangerous scale of loans to speculators and developers, an inquiry has heard.

The future development of West Cork’s economy will come under the spotlight at a special meeting later this week.

At 10.30am yesterday, two citizens were sentenced for doing something, a judge said, they believed was lawful.

Two former executives at the defunct Anglo Irish Bank will serve 240 hours community service for their role in an illegal lending plot.

So finally some of the hitherto obedient Labour classes have said enough is enough and called time on the unfortunate Mr Gilmour. It is a scandalous situation that the people have been ignored, and it has taken the electorate to force an about turn.

The recent trial of three former Anglo executives has put a fresh context on the bank’s actions, says Investigative Correspondent Conor Ryan.

The Central Bank has signalled its satisfaction with disclosure levels at Anglo Irish Bank when it pitched a €30bn bond offer while simultaneously trying to secretly "dribble" Seán Quinn’s stake on to the market.

THERE are times when public opinion is a bit like one of those termite clouds that appeared in old cartoons.

The public grilling of key players involved in the fateful bank guarantee that resulted in costs of €64bn to the Irish people will get underway by October.

Central Bank chief Patrick Honohan has said a broad and effective banking inquiry will go a long way to restoring confidence in the financial regulatory system and in Irish public affairs in general.

The decision not to impose a custodial sentence in the Anglo Irish Bank corruption trial will fuel the sense of injustice, pointlessness and disenchantment that has convinced many people, far too many people, that State officialdom is incapable of, or ultimately disinterested in, standing between citizens and the social havoc out-of-control capitalism can wreak.

A broad and effective banking inquiry will go a long way to restoring confidence in the financial regulatory system and in Irish public affairs in general, according to the governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan.

The governor of the Central Bank has said he agrees with a judge’s withering attack on the former financial regulator over a loans-for-shares scam at Anglo Irish Bank.

The Public Expenditure Minister says the Banking Inquiry is now "imminent".

A judge has ruled that it would be “incredibly unjust” to send two Anglo banking executives to jail as they were led into “error and illegality” by a state agency, the country’s financial watchdog.

It looks like the Anglo trial is all over bar the sentencing but, in reality, the saga has a long way to go before it has exhausted public interest and ceased to be in the public interest.

The first two people to be convicted of crimes related to the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank are likely to receive softer sentences because of the role the financial regulator’s office played in their activity.

THE impact the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank has had on the country has been complex but the criminal trial that emerged from it was strangely simple.

The former financial watchdog has said he was not alarmed when one-time billionaire tycoon Sean Quinn called personally at his office and mentioned he had a secret shareholding in Anglo Irish Bank.

Seán Quinn has claimed Anglo Irish Bank executives were aware the bank was in serious trouble in late 2007 at a time when they were willing to offer him hundreds of millions of euro to cover his investment in Anglo.

The trial of three former Anglo Irish Bank executives has heard businessman Sean Quinn admitted to the financial regulator that he had been greedy in building up a stake in the bank.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny expects taoisigh will appear before the long-awaited Oireachtas banking inquiry, which is expected to begin hearings in advance of next year’s European and local elections.

We are potentially just weeks away from learning which group of politicians will lead the long-awaited inquiry into Ireland’s banking crisis.

David Drumm cemented efforts to hide a multimillion-dollar American investment property from Anglo Irish Bank within hours of his explosive comments caught on tape urging other executives to “get the money in”.

Taped phone calls from inside the walls of the bust Anglo Irish Bank have so far revealed the attitudes of just three key players.

THE latest revelations in the taped conversations between two Anglo Irish Bank executives are explosive.

Eight months after a report on Custom House Capital’s Ponzi-type scheme — in which many lost their life savings — those responsible have not been brought to justice, says Michael Clifford

The ECB sought to attach a “huge punitive element” to Ireland’s bailout, former Green Party senator Dan Boyle has said.

Arriving in Jan 2010 on a pledge to clean up the banking sector, the financial regulator Matthew Elderfield, while not making giant strides, has gone some way to justifying his €340,000 salary, writes, Kyran Fitzgerald

The referendum to reverse the Abbeylara judgment, if passed, is likely to lead to a banking inquiry. The temptation for cheap point-scoring will have to be resisted, writes Michael Clifford

FORMER taoiseach Bertie Ahern has claimed €270,000 in expenses from the state since stepping down in 2008.

A study into the banking crisis by Finnish expert Peter Nyberg has found that lenders at Anglo Irish Bank "commonly ignored their own rules" on loan policy.