DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair, Europe’s biggest budget airline, warned high fuel costs and a worsening economic outlook in Europe meant profit would slip by up to 20 percent in the coming year, the first fall in four years.

The Dublin-based airline, famous for its no-frills service, posted a record annual profit on higher fares for the year to March, but warned its run of growth of at least 25 percent profit every year since 2009 was likely to come to an end.

DUBLIN, May 21 (Reuters) – Ryanair, Europe’s biggest
budget airline, warned surging fuel costs and a worsening
economic outlook meant profit would slip by up to 20 percent in
the coming year, the first fall in four years.

The Dublin-based airline, which posted a record annual
profit on Monday and has posted profit growth of at least 25
percent every year since 2009, confirmed it would pay out 483
million euros ($614.5 million) to shareholders in just its
second dividend payout since floating in 1997.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Sinn Fein hopes to ride a wave of anger against austerity measures to achieve its ambition of ruling Ireland, its leader Gerry Adams said on Friday, as misgivings about its role in the Northern Ireland conflict fade.

The political wing of the now-defunct Irish Republican Army has seen its support surge since Ireland’s Celtic Tiger economy began to collapse in 2008 and is now the second most popular party in the country, according to opinion polls.

DUBLIN, May 4 (Reuters) – Irish airline Aer Lingus
offered its first dividend in more than five years as a public
company on Friday following a return to profit, disappointing
some shareholders who had hoped for a bigger payout.

Aer Lingus, which has not made any form of distribution to
shareholders since its stock market listing in 2006, said on
Friday it intends to declare an ordinary dividend of 3 cents per
share, to be paid in July.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s deputy prime minister said on Thursday he thought the head of the Irish Catholic Church should resign after a TV documentary reported the cleric had failed to warn parents their children were being sexually abused by a priest in 1975.

A BBC documentary broadcast on Tuesday said that Cardinal Sean Brady was given the names and addresses of children being abused by notorious pedophile Brendan Smyth during a Church investigation but had failed to act to ensure their safety.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s EU/IMF lenders will allow it to spend more proceeds from the sale of state assets on stimulating the economy, suggesting greater willingness within the euro zone to temper relentless austerity with some growth strategies.

Marking the halfway point of its three-year aid programme, Ireland passed the latest review of its bailout on Thursday and reached an agreement to carve out a viable bank from troubled lender permanent TSB as a basis for rebuilding the country’s banking system, which was devastated by a property crash.

DUBLIN, April 23 (Reuters) – Ireland beat the budget deficit
target set under its EU/IMF bailout by more than a percentage
point in 2011, the government said on Monday, making it more
likely that it would stay on track this year despite cuts to
growth forecasts.

Dublin said that stripping out one-off capital injections
into its banks, the country’s underlying deficit for the year
was 9.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with
the 10.6 percent target.

BELFAST (Reuters) – For much of the century since the Titanic sank, the story of the doomed liner has been a taboo subject in Belfast, an unwelcome reminder of industrial failure and bitter sectarian division in the city that built her.

Now Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, buoyed by 14 years of peace, aims to salvage the liner as a symbol of one-time industrial might, hoping the Hollywood glamour around its story can create an icon for a new, united city.

DUBLIN, April 12 (Reuters) – Ireland said on Thursday it is
in talks with EU officials to keep 30 billion euros of
bank-related debt off its balance sheet while the European
Central Bank said it was ready to help Dublin work on proposals
to limit the damage from its bank bailout.

As a fragile economy is making it harder for Dublin to
contain its debt spiral, the government has been lobbying to
ease the burden of its bank-related debt, brought on by reckless
lending during a property boom.

DUBLIN, March 29 (Reuters) – Ireland will avoid a 3.1
billion euro payment to one of its failed banks, settling the
bill by issuing a 13-year bond, the country’s finance minister
said on Thursday ahead of broader talks on easing the country’s
financing burden.

Dublin has been campaigning for months to soften the terms
of its bank bailout, concentrating principally on replacing 30
billion euros of high-interest IOUs given mainly to the former
Anglo Irish Bank with another instrument that would lengthen
their maturity and cut their interest rate.