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Irish Republic to get bail-out loan, says central bank

Irish Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan has said he expects the Irish Republic to accept a "very substantial loan" as part of an EU-backed bail-out.

Mr Honohan told RTE radio he expected the loan to amount to "tens of billions" of euros.

The final decision will be up to the Irish government, which has yet to comment.

Mr Honohan's comments come as a team of international officials meet in Dublin for further talks on the debt crisis.

Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the EU will meet the Irish government, which has denied that it has asked for aid.

Mr Honahan said that any loan would be substantial.

"It'll be a large loan because the purpose of the amount to be advanced or to be made available to be borrowed is to show that Ireland has sufficient firepower to deal with any concerns of the market. That's the purpose of it," he told RTE.

Borrowing costs
Fears about the stability of Irish banks has led to a rise in the price the Irish government - which has pumped billions into its banks - pays to borrow money.

Other eurozone countries that are also perceived as weak are seeing their borrowing costs rise too.

The latest discussions in Dublin follow a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday of European finance ministers.

Northern Ireland 'rents rise as house prices fall'

Rent prices in Northern Ireland have risen even as house prices fell, an independent rental website suggests.

A report by City Lets found falling house prices coupled with a lack of mortgage finance led to an increase in house rental prices across Belfast.

While property prices fell steadily from January to September 2010, rents rose by about 7%, said the report.

Citylets managing director Thomas Ashdown said economic uncertainty made people less likely to buy property.

"Demand in the rental market is very squarely underpinned now by a lack of availability or a lack of available credit finance or too expensive credit finance," he said.

"In addition, there are a number of people who would perhaps be in a position to buy but they are very wary about making the step on to the sales market.

"As a result, people are staying in rental property longer or waiting to see how the market is going to behave before moving forward."

'Slight rise' in NI house prices, says Nationwide

The housing market has been slow during the summer Northern Ireland property prices rose 1.6% during the past three months, the Nationwide building society has said.

It said NI was "surprisingly" the best-performing region in its survey, but the trend was still falling prices.

The 1.6% rise was not enough to offset previous falls, it said, "so the annual rate of house price falls actually accelerated from 5.2% to 11.1%".

Northern Ireland was the only region in its survey where housing market activity had declined in the past year.

In London, the number of house purchase loans rose 42% year-on-year, but Northern Ireland saw a 2% fall.

It said Belfast was the strongest area of Northern Ireland's housing market, with prices down 4% year-on-year.

Irish deficit jumps after new bank bail-out

The Irish Central Bank has said it will need to increase the amount of support to the country's banking sector.

The total amount has risen to 45bn euros (£39bn), or 32% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

The Bank said supporting Anglo Irish Bank alone would cost from 29.3bn euros to a "stress scenario" bail-out of up to 34bn euros (£29.2bn).

The finance minister, Brian Lenihan, says it is "manageable". Without the bank support, the deficit would be 12%.

In comparison, the UK's deficit - including the cost of its bank support - is just over 10% of GDP for this year.

Last month, the cost of the bail-out of Anglo Irish was estimated at between 22-25bn euros.

The Irish Republic says its latest announcement represents the final costs of repairing the country's banking system. It hopes this will reassure worried investors.

On the markets, the key interest rate on Irish 10-year bonds fell to 6.55% from this week's all time high of 6.91%, an indication that investors' fears had abated slightly.