DUBLIN, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Ryanair raised its 2011
profit forecast by 10 percent on Monday, saying higher revenue
per passenger mile would offset stubbornly high fuel prices.

Europe’s largest budget airline said it had seen virtually
no impact from the downturn in consumer confidence, but warned
traffic would fall in the coming months as it grounded 80
aircraft as a result of high fuel prices.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland will target 12.4 billion euros (10 billion pound) in austerity measures over the next four years, further tightening the screws on its recession-weary people as it seeks to cement its transformation from European basketcase to the bloc’s recovery story.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny is determined to extract Ireland from a humiliating EU-IMF bailout and return to debt markets in 2013 and needs to drastically squeeze the budget deficit to convince investors Irish debt is worth a punt.

DUBLIN, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Irish airline Aer Lingus
expects to post full-year operating profit of around 40 million
euros ($55.2 million) and hopes to make progress in talks over a
huge pension deficit early next year, its chief executive said
on Thursday.

Aer Lingus shares have fallen 37 percent since January, on
concerns about its large pension obligations and a first-half
loss on weak Irish demand and growing costs. Rival Ryanair’s
share price fell 11 percent in the same period.

DUBLIN, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Irish food group Kerry
reaffirmed its full-year earnings target of 8-12 percent on
Wednesday, saying it had managed to maintain margins in its key
ingredients business despite rising costs.

Kerry, Ireland’s third biggest listed company by value, said
like-for-like sales revenue in the first nine months of 2011
grew 7.3 percent, down from 8.4 percent in the six months to
June.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Michael D. Higgins, set to clinch victory on Saturday in Ireland’s presidential election, is an intellectual career politician with a bohemian streak who made his name as a campaigner for human rights.

He argued for the legalisation of contraception and divorce in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Ireland of the 1970s, and has been a mainstay of human rights demonstrations in recent decades, repeatedly describing the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the Israeli blockade of Gaza as illegal.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – A former culture minister and part-time poet from Ireland’s junior coalition party was set to be elected president on Friday, beating a reality TV star and an ex-IRA commander, as his main rival conceded defeat after a first count of votes.

A victory for Labour’s Michael D. Higgins would be a relief for the government after senior partners Fine Gael posted their worst presidential performance while ex-guerrilla fighter Martin McGuinness’s Sinn Fein opposition party made further gains.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – A left-wing former culture minister was on course to be elected Ireland’s president on Friday, beating a former IRA commander and a TV reality star, early tallies showed as one of his rivals conceded defeat.

Michael D. Higgins, a champion of Palestinian rights and a member of junior coalition partner Labour Party, was ahead in most voting tallies across the country, state broadcaster RTE reported.

DUBLIN, Oct 28 (Reuters) – Irish voters waited on Friday for
the results of an election that could hand the presidency to a
reality TV star, a left-wing poet or a former IRA commander, but
is almost certain to embarrass the party of Prime Minister Enda
Kenny.

Weeks of mud-slinging between the seven candidates vying for
the largely ceremonial role have distracted Ireland from its
financial crisis.

DUBLIN, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Ireland’s state-run National
Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has started offering financing to
commercial property buyers and expects to ramp up such lending
next year, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

Created to purge Irish banks of nearly 75 billion euros’
worth of risky land and development loans, NAMA is one of the
world’s largest property groups and needs to revive Ireland’s
moribund commercial property sector to avoid further writedowns
to its portfolio.

DUBLIN, Oct 20 (Reuters) – Ireland’s government won
enthusiastic backing from its EU-IMF creditors on Thursday for
its policy of keeping austerity measures within bounds in order
to protect the country’s fragile economic recovery.

Ireland is meeting its targets under an 85 billion euros
bailout but has faced calls from its own fiscal watchdog to
accelerate cutbacks and tax hikes to reassure investors spooked
by the Greek crisis that Dublin’s debts are sustainable.