Plans to sell off the Irish Nationwide Building Society - offering a windfall for shareholding depositors and savers - appear to have faltered. As we warned here before - when headlines were appearing elsewhere that the deal was nearly done - selling Irish Nationwide is no easy tasks in the current economic environment.

First, the banking sector internationally is clearly out of favour and raising money to fund such a deal would be challenging. Second, Nationwide has exposure to the Irish property market, now regarded, rightly or wrongly, as high risk by international investors.

For good measure, it also has exposure to the rapidly weakening British property market. Nor will the controversy over loans to solicitor Michael Lynn help.

Word is that Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank which owns Merrion Stockbrokers and was long touted as a front-runner, has gone cold, for the moment, at least.

There was also speculation that another Icelandic bank, the acquisitive Kaupthing, might enter the fray, but there is no sign of it making a big play either.

All could turn on a sixpence, of course, if Michael Fingleton were to agree a price to sell off the institution he has headed - and driven - for 35 years. But in the current environment, the price would have to be right and the buyer one who could fund the buy largely from its own resources and be prepared to buy as a long-term play.

However if Fingleton does not go for a cut-price sale, how will the society fare in the chill winds, with its cost of funding gone up and demand for mortgage loans weak?

Taxing times for Roche
Dick Roche, leading the government’s charge for a ‘yes’ vote on the European Treaty, has told his cabinet colleagues that plans to create a common consolidated corporation tax base across Europe were ‘dead in the water’.

The CCCTB, as it is known to euro-anoraks, is anathema to Ireland. Its provisions could threaten our ability to attract foreign investment and, in the long term, lead to a push for a common corporate tax rate, which would really hurt our drive to attract US firms.

However the signs from Europe are that tax commissioner Lazlo Kovacs intends to push ahead, albeit waiting until after the referendum vote here to do so. He told MEPs recently that the measure would be reintroduced in the second half of this year and claimed that some two thirds of member states supported it - in contrast to Roche’s view that support was slipping away.

Then in a speech in Brussels last week, he said that if it could not get unanimous support, the commission intended to push through the measure using enhanced cooperation rules, which Kovacs said would mean it would get past the dissenters.

With economic growth slowing, this is going to be a big issue in the referendum battle and goes to the heart of the arguments for subsidiarity and the areas where Brussels should - and should not - interfere.

Decision time for fund managers
Who would be a fund manager? Having betted on keeping a heavy weighting in Irish shares, fund managers have had a horrendous few months, capped off by further significant falls in 2008.

Remaining overweight in Ireland means that the managers who take a pretty penny in fees have overseen massive falls in pension and some equity funds over the past nine months or so.

Happy are the pension fund trustees who diversified away from Irish pension fund managers to some of the big international names - an increasing trend in recent years, as business has moved away from some of the traditional Irish names.

Now the dilemma for those who remain overweight in Ireland is whether to sell out and rebalance or whether to hold on and hope that the Irish market is vastly oversold, as stockbrokers have been telling us for months now, even as prices fell ever further.

ECB going soft on rates?
Not a great week overall, with threats to a large number of jobs in North Dublin, developers starting to slash house prices, increasing pessimism in the US and inflation falling back a bit from 5 per cent but still remaining stubbornly high at 4.7 per cent in December. Amidst all the gloom, is there a small ray or sunlight from the European Central Bank.

After its last council meeting, ECB president Jean Claude Trichet had taken a hawkish tone, warning about inflationary risks and saying that the council had considered only two options - keeping rates constant or increasing them, in the end opting for the former.

Last week, however, a statement from ECB officials - and particularly from Luxembourg central banker Yves Mersch - appeared to take a softer tone, warning about the dangers to growth. Could the ECB be trimming its sails, or is it just as confused as the rest of us?

With signs that the Bank of England will cut rates again soon and that the US Federal Reserve Board may cut by half a point next week, pressure could yet build on the ECB to cut rates in the months ahead if the economic storm clouds darken.

For the moment, however, the smart money remains on rates staying right where they are.