Update 1.07pm - Adds full report
Three senior Irish bankers have been sentenced to between two and three-and-a-half years in prison for conspiring to defraud investors, the most prominent prosecution case arising from the 2008 banking crisis.
The lack of convictions until now related to the crash has angered Irish taxpayers, who had to stump up 64 billion euros - almost 40 percent of annual economic output - after a property collapse forced the biggest state bank rescue in the euro zone.
The crash pushed Ireland into a three-year sovereign bailout in 2010 and the finance ministry said last month that it could take another 15 years to recover the funds pumped into the banks still operating.
Former Irish Life and Permanent Chief Executive Denis Casey was sentenced to two years and nine months. Willie McAteer, former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank, and John Bowe, its ex-head of capital markets, were given sentences of 42 months and 24 months respectively.
All three were convicted of conspiring together and with others to mislead investors, depositors and lenders by setting up a 7.2 billion euro circular transaction scheme between March and September 2008 to bolster...
