DUBLIN, Feb 22 (Reuters) – The Irish government raised
its target for the sale of state assets to 3 billion euros ($4
billion) in unveiling its final list of utilities set to go on
the block.

Dublin said it will meet most of its target by selling the
energy business of Bord Gais, while the previously announced
sale of a minority stake in the state’s most valuable asset, the
Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB), is off the table.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s reputation as a technology hub is a big draw for China, the Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping said at the end of a three-day visit, his only European Union stop on a world tour.

Speaking at an investment forum Monday with some 350 companies, Xi said Ireland’s history, scenery and culture had impressed the Chinese people.

DUBLIN, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Bank of Ireland
said it was attracting deposits, cutting costs and expected home
loan arrears to peak this year, raising hopes Ireland’s biggest
lender had turned a corner after a 60 percent drop in underlying
profit in 2011.

The only Irish bank to avoid nationalisation after an
unprecedented property crash, Bank of Ireland said on Monday low
interest rates would make it harder to achieve its goal for a
net interest margin – the gap between what it charges for loans
and what it pays to borrow – of 2 percent in 2014.

DUBLIN, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Bank of Ireland’s
underlying operating profit more than halved last year on high
funding costs, a limited appetite for new credit and the selling
off of higher-earning assets, though analysts said there were
signs that the worst is now over.

The only domestic lender to avoid nationalisation after an
unprecedented property crash, the bank saw the still high cost
of attracting deposits and higher cost of a government guarantee
of its liabilities cut net interest margin by 8 percent.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s national sports – Gaelic football and hurling – won an unlikely new audience when pictures of China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping kicking a football were beamed to Beijing from Ireland, the only European stop on his current world tour.

Xi, whose trip began in the United States last week, arrived in Dublin Sunday from the west of Ireland, where he toured a dairy farm and the picturesque Cliffs of Moher.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s national sports of Gaelic football and hurling won an unlikely new audience on Sunday when pictures of China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping kicking a football in Dublin’s Croke Park stadium were beamed home to Beijing.

Xi, who chose Ireland as the only European stop of a trip that began in the United States last week, arrived in Dublin directly from the west of Ireland after touring a dairy farm and the picturesque Cliffs of Moher earlier in the day.

DUBLIN, Feb 17 (Reuters) – When China’s
leader-in-waiting touches down for the only European stop of his
trip on Saturday after a U.S. visit, Xi Jinping will not visit
Germany, France or Britain.

Xi has set his sights on Ireland’s rolling countryside where
he will watch Gaelic football, have a private showing of the
Irish Riverdance show and visit the idyllic Cliffs of Moher.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – A group of Irish opposition lawmakers launched a campaign on Wednesday to petition the president for a referendum on Europe’s new fiscal treaty with the aim of upsetting government hopes of a smooth ratification.

Irish support for the European Union has cooled during the financial crisis and there is no guarantee a referendum on tougher fiscal rules would succeed, throwing into doubt Dublin’s commitment to the single currency and the future of the euro zone.

DUBLIN (Reuters) – The chief investigator into suspected fraud at Anglo Irish Bank ANGIB.UL has rowed back on a decision to retire next month and join an exodus of public sector workers taking advantage of generous early-exit pension terms.

Paul Appleby, Ireland’s director of corporate enforcement who has led the three-year probe into events preceding the scandal-hit bank’s nationalisation, said earlier on Tuesday that he would leave his post at the end of February.

DUBLIN, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Ireland launched a bond
switch on Wednesday to avoid a near 12 billion euro funding
cliff in early 2014 that threatens its ambition to exit an
EU-IMF bailout next year.

In the most significant test of market sentiment since it
was forced into a rescue programme in November 2010, Ireland’s
debt management agency offered holders of its 4 percent January
2014 note a new bond maturing in February 2015 and paying a
coupon of 4.5 percent.