August 11, 2009

Job losses across the shrunken Irish banking -sector and overseas-owned lenders began in earnest last week. Ulster Bank, the Irish unit of Britain's RBS, said it would seek to cut 250 more jobs in the Republic, having already closed First Active, a Dublin mortgage bank it bought six years ago.

The move is only the beginning of a shake-up that will begin once the government's 'bad' bank, the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), cleanses five of the six Irish-owned lenders of burdensome loans totalling about €87bn ($123bn), amounting to half of Irish gross national product.