Seen and heard: Turleys buy out partner in Hungary

Hungarian venture The Turley family

has bought out US firm Fagen's 50 per cent share of their joint venture, Ethanol Europe Renewables, says the Sunday Times. The Hungarian venture, one of Europe's biggest producers of bioethanol, has revenues of about €170 million. The Turleys previously sold CarTrawler for about €100 million.

Avoiding VAT

The

Sunday Times

also reports that the Revenue Commissioners are investigating whether overseas e-retailers are using

Amazon

and

eBay

to avoid paying the State VAT on products sold to Irish consumers. Irish officials are collaborating with European officials on this.

The Sunday Business Post reports that just 1 per cent of civil servants had the payment of increments withheld in 2014 for poor performance. Only 148 of the 30,000 workers in Government departments received a review score of less than three out of five, following which pay increments are blocked.

The Sunday Business Post also suggests that the Government's Economic Management Council, effectively a sub-committee of the four most senior members of Cabinet, may be disbanded. The paper says Tánaiste Joan Burton has signalled that there is no need for the so-called "war cabinet" as the State's finances return to stability.

Mortgage defaults

The

Central Bank

has been urged to allow private insurers to take on some of the risk of mortgage defaults, in order to lessen the impact of lending rules on the housing market, says the

Sunday Independent

. Global insurance broker JLT has written to the governor,

Philip Lane

, asking him to allow for the setting up of a scheme where insurers would pay out on defaults on mortgages that exceed lending caps.

The Sunday Independent also says bidders for the State-funded National Broadband Plan tender have been warned by the Government that the contract will be subject to a series of "moving goalposts". The Department of Communications has told bidders that large parts of rural Ireland may be withdrawn from coverage by the State scheme in the next two to five years, as private operators move in.