Varadkar interview; VAT discount ends; and private equity groups circle AIB’s €1bn bad loan portfolio

There will be no rushed return to normal, the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said. Speaking to Business Editor Ciarán Hancock, the Minister said his focus was on ensuring the survival of businesses and on making sure the pandemic costs the economy only a lost year or so, not a lost decade as the State suffered after the financial crash.

Meanwhile the Minister for Finance said there will be no extension to the reduction in top rate VAT. The top rate was cut from 23 per cent to 21 per cent last year to help Covid-hit retailers. Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports.

One of Anglo Irish Bank's most senior bankers claimed in court that he was made a scapegoat by the bank when it called in millions of euro in performing loans as the Sean Quinn debacle unwound.

Roy Barrett. the man who has led Goodbody's stockbrokers for a quarter of a century will step down following the anticipated €130 million purchase of the broker by AIB, the bank that owned the business before the financial crash, writes Joe Brennan.

Irish aviation group lands RAF maintenance contract

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Blackstone gets green light for prime Dublin office purchase

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EU states fear further delays to Covid inoculation programme

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Joe also writes that the bank is expected to announce shortly which of two private equity funds – Lone Star or Apollo – will take over a portfolio of seriously troubled loans which were originally worth €1 billion.

Kennedy Wilson has submitted a major planning application for a new office campus on St Stephen's Green, extending from its own headquarters in the old Department of Justice building to the offices of KPMG at the junction with Harcourt Street. Deputy property editor Ronald Quinlan says the move will be seen as a clear pitch to accommodate the Big Four accountant in its search for a new Dublin headquarter office.

Shannon-based Atlantic Aviation Group has bought a former Flybe business in England that maintains cargo planes for Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). Barry O'Halloran has the details.

The Data Protection Commission is under fire once again, with privacy activists arguing that IT systems are ill-equipped for the task of managing the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In his column, Eoin Burke-Kennedy urges homeowners and buyers not to buy into the industry's sales patter. Prices in the medium term are coming down, he says.

Also in commercial property, the Morrison Hotel is quietly back on the market at a reduced guide price of €68 million – down from €80 million before the pandemic.

And Blackstone's acquisition of Colony Capital's interests in two prime Dublin office assets, Burlington Plaza and Three's headquarters on Sir John Rogerson's Quay, has been cleared by the Consumer and Competition Protection Commission).

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