Dublin - Ireland's Central Bank said Tuesday that mortgage- lending had reached its lowest level in 21 years in August.

Lending for residential mortgages was up just 9 per cent compared to August 2007, which is the lowest growth rate since
1987.

The increase in August was less than half the increase in July, according to the Central Bank, which described the figure as "exceptionally low."

The Irish government has donated more than 1.5 million dollars to Irish immigration organizations in the United States, a statement from Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said Sunday.

The total of 1,518,500 dollars would go to 16 organizations "which provide frontline support and advisory services to Irish emigrants."

Dublin has so far provided over 3.1 million dollars to immigration groups this year as up to an estimated 50,000 Irish citizens living and working in the US face possible deportation for not having visas.

Dublin has been pressuring Washington to grant the so-called undocumented Irish legal status.

Dublin- A report in Thursday's Irish Times revealed more about the funding for the main lobby group that successfully campaigned for a "No" vote in Ireland's June referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty.

The founder of Libertas, Declan Ganley, told Ireland's Hot Press he had given the campaign a "personal loan" of 200,000 euros (300,000 dollars), the Irish Times report said.

Ganley said he had also set up a loan facility at the start of the campaign in case it needed more money. The campaign spent 800,000 euros, he said, out of a budget of 1.3 million.

Dublin  - Ireland's economy - which enjoyed an unprecedented boom in the last decade - is in recession after the gross domestic product fell for the second successive quarter, figures released from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in Dublin showed Thursday.

GDP fell by 0.8 per cent in the second quarter of this year compared to the same quarter of 2007 after falling by 1.3 per cent in the first quarter compared to the first three months of 2007.

GDP fell by 1 per cent overall in the first six months of the year compared to last year.

Gross national product, which excludes earnings from multinational companies, fell by as much as 2.1 per cent in the second quarter after growing by 0.9 per cent in the first quarter.

Dublin - Dublin and Washington have signed a deal to allow 20,000 Irish school leavers to live and work in the US for 12 months and also allow 5,000 US citizens to live and work in Ireland for the same length of time, the Irish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Micheal Martin signed the deal on Wednesday with US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in Washington.

"This represents one of the most significant developments in our visa arrangements with the US in almost two decades," Martin said in a statement.

Dublin - After 22 hours of negotiations, the Irish government said Wednesday it had managed to agree a 6-per-cent pay increase with workers for the next 21 months.

The deal would be paid in two phases following an initial pay freeze, a statement from Prime Minister Brian Cowen's office said.

Private-sector workers would receive a 3.5-per-cent rise for six months, then 3.5 per cent for the following year after an initial three-month freeze.

Public sector workers' wages would be frozen for 11 months, then they would receive 3.5 per cent for nine months and 2.5 per cent for the final month, the statement said.

Dublin - The Irish Stock Exchange or IEX plummeted 7 per cent to 4,033.13 by noon Monday in reaction to the news that US investment bank Lehman Brothers intended to file for bankruptcy protection.

Banks suffered the heaviest losses, with Anglo Irish Bank Corp plc down 11 per cent to 4.48 euros, Allied Irish Banks plc down 9.7 per cent to 7.12 euros and Bank of Ireland down 7.2 per cent to 4.65 euros. (dpa)

Dublin/London  - A Ryanair aircraft was Thursday forced to make an emergency landing minutes after take-off from Dublin airport in Ireland, the budget airline said.

A spokesman said the back of the plane struck the runway as it took off and the pilot returned to the airport as a precaution. He described the occurrence as a "tail-strike" which was "quite common."

"As a precautionary measure the aircraft returned with oxygen masks deployed and landed safely in Dublin," he said.

All 148 passengers disembarked normally and the flight later took off for London-Stansted airport. No-one was injured.

Dublin, September 11 : The partial remains of a young person, probably female, which could date back to between 2500-2000 BC, have been uncovered during an archaeological dig in the Burren, Co Clare, in Ireland.

According to a report in the Irish Times, the prehistoric remains were found in the passageway to the central burial chamber of Caherconnell Cashel, a well-preserved stone fort, during the dig that began a fortnight ago.

A significant factor of the discovery is that the body had been allowed to decompose elsewhere before some of the skeleton was placed where it was found, according to archaeologist, Graham Hull.

Dublin  - Lack of knowledge or understanding was the main reason Ireland voted against the European Union's Lisbon Treaty in June, Irish government research showed Wednesday.

Forty-two per cent of those surveyed gave this as their reason for voting no, according to the poll carried out on behalf of the government by Millward Brown IMS at the end of July.

"An EU knowledge deficit is clearly present which has undoubtedly contributed to the no vote," the polling company said.

Dublin - Immigrants are more likely to be unemployed and less likely to secure professional and managerial positions, a report published Wednesday in Dublin shows.

The report, Immigrants at Work: Ethnicity and Nationality in the Irish Labour Market, by researchers from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and supported by the Equality Authority, was based on information from Ireland's Central Statistics Office.

ESRI researchers Dr Philip J O'Connell and Dr Frances McGinnity found that black people were nine times more likely to be unemployed than Irish nationals, while immigrants from non-English-speaking countries were largely excluded from the most privileged occupations.

Dublin - Just over 20 per cent of Irish primary school children are being taught in classes of 30 pupils or more, figures from the Education Ministry released Monday showed.

A total of 95,773 of the 470,270 pupils in Irish primary schools were in classes of 30 and more, the figures showed.

"Almost 100,000 children remain in classes of 30 pupils or more despite year-on-year promises to tackle the issue," said John Carr, general secretary of the primary teachers' union, the Irish National Teachers Organization.

He said a lack of government planning was to blame.

Dublin  - Ireland has asked its ambassador to Belarus to discuss a travel ban on children affected by the Chernobyl disaster with the Belarusian authorities, Irish national broadcaster RTE reported Monday.

Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said he had asked the ambassador to discuss formal arrangements for the children, 1,000 of whom visit Ireland each year for holidays and medical treatment, following a travel ban imposed on all children last week after a Belarusian teen refused to return home after a summer holiday in the United States.

Thousands of Belarusian children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster enjoy foreign holidays funded by the charity the Chernobyl Children's Project.

Dublin - The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Ireland jumped to a 10-year high of 6.1 per cent in August from 4.5 per cent in the same month last year, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reported Wednesday.

There were 235,100 people claiming unemployment benefits in August, up 73,200 over the 12-month period to the end of the month, the highest jump ever recorded, the CSO told national broadcaster RTE.

Unemployment in Ireland has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year when the economy started to take a downturn.

Dublin - Satellite navigation systems have been causing chaos in Ireland's idyllic Ring of Kerry, a 180-kilometre stretch of road around the rugged landscape of the island's south-west, national broadcaster RTE reported Wednesday.

Large vehicles have travelled anti-clockwise around the circular route to and from Killarney since the 1800s, but modern sat-nav systems have been sending tourist coaches and lorries in the wrong direction.

The large vehicles are also getting trapped in tunnels and on bridges on the road which winds round the mountains of Macgillycuddy's Reeks on the Iveragh peninsula.

Councillors in Kerry have called for sat-nav systems to be updated, RTE reported. (dpa)

Dublin - Ireland's Europe Minister Dick Roche has been criticised by both yes and no campaigners for saying he believes a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty will be necessary, the Irish Independent reported Tuesday.

Roche told the newspaper on Monday that it is his "personal view at this stage" that Ireland will have to vote again on the EU reform treaty the country rejected in a referendum in June.

Prior to Roche's comments government ministers had said it was too early to say how Ireland would get around the ratification dilemma. Ireland was the only EU member to hold a public referendum on the treaty which has to be ratified by all 27 member states before it can come into effect.

Dublin, August 21 : A find, which is being touted as the ‘cradle of Berlin’ - one of the oldest graveyards of the city that contains 2,300 skeletons, has uncovered evidence that the German capital is 45 years older than previously thought.

Since March, archaeologists have been at work at Petriplatz, Peter’s Square, which served in the Middle Ages as the central square of Colln, Berlin’s now vanished sister city.

The area was badly damaged during the Second World War and bulldozed out of existence by East German city planners.

Today, motorists race along the busy Leipzigerstrasse, a six-lane east-west thoroughfare, oblivious of the archaeologists only metres away behind their hoarding.

Dublin - Ireland's low-fare airline Ryanair warned Monday that it is bracing for red-ink of up to 60 million euros (95 million dollars) in the fiscal 2008/2009 year amid surging fuel costs.

At best, the airline said in presenting first-quarter figures, the company could show break-even results.

Ryanair said that in the first quarter starting April 1, it managed a profit of 21 million euros, plunging 85 per cent from the same quarter a year earlier.

Aviation fuel in the quarter cost the airline 367 million euros, surging 93 per cent from the same quarter last year. Ryanair said fuel now accounts for half of the airline's expenses, compared with 36 per cent a year ago.

Dublin - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who generated controversy by saying Ireland should hold another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, is likely to meet opponents of the deal when he visits Dublin next week, media reports said Thursday.

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin said Sarkozy would be in a "listening mode" during his brief trip on Monday, and would not be imposing any solutions.

Dublin  - The Supreme Court in Dublin struck down a "risk equalization" scheme Wednesday by which the former Irish state health insurer, VHI, was compensated by private rivals for having more elderly customers, national broadcaster RTE reported.

The court said the scheme was based on "a wrong interpretation of the law," RTE reported.

The ruling upheld an appeal by British insurer Bupa against the scheme, which prompted the company to leave the Irish health insurance market in January 2007 after it was told to pay VHI 161 million euros (256 million dollars) in compensation over three years.