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Weekend Digest

The good news on the job front is set to continue, according to the Sunday Business Post, which says that PayPal is set to announce a major expansion as early as this week.

The online payments firm, a subsidiary of Ebay, arrived in Ireland in 2003, and now employs around 1,500 people at is European headquarters in Blanchardstown in west Dublin. Rumours surfaced last year that the company was to create 1,000 jobs at a new facility, separate to its Blanchardstown base.

A possible announcement from PayPal is one of a number of job announcements which are expected from the IDA in the next few weeks.

* The black hole at Custom House Capital, the investment firm which collapsed last year, has reached €90 million, the Sunday Times reports. High Court inspectors reported last October that €66 million had been siphoned off from client accounts, but the sale of five commercial properties in Europe at a loss, plus the diverting of rent to cover shortfalls on unrelated property transactions, pushed the total to €90 million.

* AIB is expected to offer employees redundancy terms of five weeks pay per year of service – less than the six weeks per year terms agreed for Bank of Ireland employees last year, according to a report in the Sunday Business Post. AIB is expected to reduce its headcount by about 2,000, though a deal has not yet been signed off between the bank and the Department of Finance. AIB chief executive David Duffy (left) told staff that the terms of the package would be formalised within weeks.