Irish Life sold for €1.3bn

The €1.3bn sale of Irish Life will go towards paying off Government debt and is the first sale of a fully State-owned asset since the bailout.

It is believed there will be roughly 250 redundancies as a result of the sale of Irish Life to the Canadian firm Great-West Lifeco. Most of these redundancies, which will take place over the next 18 months, are expected to be voluntary.

The divestment is the first sale of a fully State-owned asset since the IMF-EU bailout in Nov 2010.