Crunch tackler

Think Like a Freak. By Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. Allen Lane, €15.10. Reviewed by David Clerkin.

The Fall of the Celtic Tiger: Ireland and the Euro Debt Crisis by Donal Donovan and Antóin E Murphy. Oxford University Press, €44.10. Reviewed by David Clerkin.

Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews. Edited by Lionel Barber. Portfolio Penguin, €25.25. Reviewed by David Clerkin.

The collapse in mortgage lending was underlined by new data released by the Irish Banking Federation (IBF), the industry umbrella group, last week.

Creating a more favourable environment for corporate whistleblowers will be an essential step in improving Irish corporate governance, according to the managing director of a new whistleblower service.

Fears are growing that not just Portugal, but Spain could be next in line for assistance from the EU and the IMF

Investors will shun hedge funds unless they do more to improve their corporate governance and transparency, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

What makes this book interesting is the author’s perspective. Irish bookshelves are already awash with various efforts - of wildly varying levels of quality - recounting the causes and effects of the Irish economic meltdown.

Chief executive Patrick Coveney has established his deal making credentials with the Northern Foods merger

In spite of Ireland’s insistence on its ability to do without funding until next June, many believe that, sooner or later, a bailout is inevitable

The British Office of Fair Trading may take a special interest in Ryanair’s minority shareholding in the former state airline

When the time comes for David Hodgkinson to decide that his work is done at AIB, the bank will be radically different to the one he inherited from Dan O’Connor, his predecessor as executive chairman.

Property developers with Nama-bound loans are enjoying multimillion-euro benefits by exploiting a loophole that allows them to claim tax deductions on interest payments even if they are not making the payments to their banks.

With big names departing or on the verge of delisting, the future looks bleak for the Irish Stock Exchange

Trinity Biotech, the Nasdaq listed Bray medical firm, is to defer its planned share buyback programme until early next year.

Investec is planning to increase its presence in Ireland by making more acquisitions here, according to the chief executive of the bank’s Irish division.

AIB will account for two thirds of the €6.6 billion loans that will no longer be transferred to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) following the government’s decision to raise the minimum transfer threshold from €5million to €20 million.

Permanent TSB customers will only get a maximum of €2.81 in interest on their current accounts per year following the bank’s decision to slash the rate it pays on credit balances last week.

An unauthorised passenger managed to board a Ryanair flight from London to Dublin last week after passing four separate security checks, despite not having a valid boarding card for the flight.