AIB has obtained a conditional court order giving the bank a charge over €2.7m worth of shares held by or on behalf of businessman Tony O’Reilly in the Dromoland Castle holding company.

Former billionaire Anthony O’Reilly lost a court bid to postpone the registration and execution of a €22.6m judgment against him for another six months.

Novelist Arthur Hailey, the best-selling author who plucked characters from ordinary life and threw them into extraordinary ordeals, died in his home in the Bahamas, his wife said today. He was 84.