Finance Minister Michael Noonan has branded a €1.24bn shortfall in the costings in Fianna Fáil’s election manifesto as the party’s “black hole of Calcutta”

The Oireachtas banking inquiry is to recommend that the Government takes legal action against the European Central Bank (ECB), over its refusal to allow Ireland burn bondholders in 2010 and 2011, the Irish Examiner can reveal.