Three more lenders are set to follow Bank of Ireland with hikes in mortgage rates, the Irish Independent has learnt.

Bank of Ireland said yesterday it was to hit homeowners on standard variable rates with a rise of 0.45pc, in a move that will add €60 a month to the cost of repaying a typical €250,000 mortgage.

The move will infuriate homeowners, with the European Central Bank (ECB) due to leave its key interest rate unchanged for the 15th month in a row when it meets tomorrow.

This latest hike, which takes effect next Tuesday, comes on top of a similar rise in April.

The two hikes mean it will cost an extra €600 over a full year in repayments for every €100,000 borrowed. A family that borrowed €300,000 over 30 years will now find it costs an extra €150 in monthly repayments following the two hikes.

Over a full year, the family will end up paying an additional €1,800 in repayments.

Almost 60,000 people will be impacted by the rise in variable rates at Bank of Ireland and its subsidiary ICS.

The bank is also making it more expensive for those who want to lock in to a fixed rate from next Tuesday.

ICS Building Society is pushing up its standard variable rate by 0.6pc and also increasing the cost of fixing.

Opting to lock into a fixed rate over five years with ICS will now cost close to 5pc.

Now AIB, which is set to report record losses today of €3bn for the six months up to March, will follow its rival with a hike in its standard rates in the coming days.

And Irish Nationwide Building Society will increase its standard variable rates early in the autumn, the Irish Independent has also learnt.

In the past few weeks, EBS Building Society increased its standard variable rate for the second time this year, while the third rise in Permanent TSB's variable rate in a year took effect yesterday.

Expensive

It is understood that Ulster Bank, which has one of the more expensive standard variable rates, is not planning any hikes at the moment.

Almost 300,000 people have standard variable rates. Most people who bought a home in the last two years would have a standard variable rate.

Lenders can put up standard variable rates at will.

Bank of Ireland's head of consumer lending Brendan Nevin blamed the cost to banks of borrowing money on wholesale markets.

Mr Nevin said the bank had "no choice but to make this move to ensure we remain open for business".

But he said there would be no further rate rises this year, outside of the ECB hiking its key rate. The latest increases come despite the ECB keeping its key lending rate at 1pc for 14 months in a row.

Frank Conway, director of the Irish Mortgage Corporation, said the latest move on mortgage rates was counter-productive. "Ireland continues to suffer from a severe consumer recession. This rise will make mortgage repayments unbearable," he added.

And Labour's Ciaran Lynch accused banks of being hell-bent on "gouging ordinary families".

MORE PEOPLE are leaving Ireland than anywhere else in the European Union, new research shows.

Although Ireland has the EU’s highest birth rate and lowest death rate, people are abandoning the country in droves as work dries up.

Figures compiled by Eurostat, the EU Commission’s statistical arm, show Ireland is markedly different from other countries in terms of population growth and outward migration. Overall, the population of the 27 EU countries is estimated to have grown to 501.1 million at the start of 2010 from 499.7 million in 2009.

A baby boom in Ireland, which began in 2008, has brought the birth rate to levels not seen since the 1890s, but the departure of some 40,000 people last year points to the return of mass emigration.

Eurostat says the net outflow from Ireland was nine people per thousand in 2009, reflecting a huge reversal from the heyday of the boom 2000 when the net population inflow of 8.4 per thousand was second only to Spain. The rate of departures from Ireland last year was almost twice as high as the country with the second-highest exit rate, Lithuania, which lost 4.6 people per thousand.

Economic Social Research Institute economist Thomas Conefrey believes a significant proportion of the outflow so far reflects the departure of non-Irish nationals. While detailed figures are not yet available, young Irish males are deemed be the second-largest group of migrants.

“In terms of labour market mobility, it would be expected to be highest among people who came here to work and who are no longer in employment,” Mr Conefrey said.

“This tendency for the rate of outflow to be highest among non-Irish nationals is backed up by the quarterly national household survey, which measures labour force trends.”

Irish figures for the 12 months to April 2009 point to net outward migration of 7,800 in that period, the first time since 1995 that there was a net outflow.

The ESRI has projected the outflow for the 12 months to April 2010 could be as high as 70,000. By other measures, however, Ireland’s demographic trends go in the opposite direction. The Irish birth rate of 16.8 per thousand in 2009 was more than twice the German rate, the EU’s lowest, of 7.9 per thousand.

The death rate in Ireland was 6.6 per thousand, closely followed by Cyprus (6.7) and then Luxembourg (7.3) and Malta (7.8). Such figures are well below the highest rates, with the death of 14.2 per thousand in Bulgaria the highest observed figure in the EU.

The result of these trends was that Ireland recorded highest natural growth in population in the EU, at 10.2 per thousand. This was well ahead of second-ranking Cyprus (5.5) and France (4.3), Luxembourg (4) and Britain (3.7).

UP TO 30,000 construction jobs will be created from a multi-billion euro investment in school building, public transport and the retro-fitting of houses.

And Taoiseach Brian Cowen yesterday claimed that a further 270,000 direct and indirect jobs could be created over the next six years due to the increased capital funding being given to the State's two main job agencies, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.

The jobs boost came as the Government unveiled its revised national development plan to invest more than €39bn in the Government's revised capital works programme by 2016.

Money has been provided for major transport projects like Metro North and the Dart Underground, as well as 70,000 extra primary and 15,000 secondary school places.

The first jobs will come on stream in weeks as work begins on the new DIT campus at Grangegorman. Eventually 450 people will be employed building the new university.

The figures are significantly down from the €75bn set aside in the previous plan to 2013.

However, employers' group IBEC last night said the certainty that now existed would deliver a much-needed stimulus to the economy.

"This investment is an important vote of confidence in the Irish economy," IBEC director Brendan Butler said.

The boost came as shares in the country's two biggest banks surged after they passed last Friday's stress tests on the European banking sector.

Shares in AIB were up 5.6pc in Dublin at the close of business yesterday. Shares in Bank of Ireland were 4.9pc stronger. And struggling small businesses (SMEs) could soon be thrown a credit lifeline.

Three government ministers -- Brian Lenihan, Batt O'Keeffe and Eamon Ryan -- met AIB chiefs last night over the bank's lending record to small businesses. They told AIB chairman Donal O'Connor and chief executive Colm Doherty that the bank must prove it was not starving credible Irish businesses of credit.

Mr O'Keeffe said banks that did not meet the lending targets would be "named and shamed".

"If the banks do not lend, our recovery will be paralysed and we are determined not to allow that to happen," he said.

A political source said: "AIB have said they're going to lend €6bn to SMEs (over the next two years). The Government wants them to spell out exactly how they're going to implement that."

According to the new plan, the IDA believes it can win 640 new investments from foreign companies in the next six years -- with half of them going to locations outside of Cork and Dublin. That would create 98,000 direct jobs and 68,000 indirect jobs in the wider economy.

Enterprise Ireland estimates that another 63,000 jobs could emerge out of support given to the SME sector, plus another 44,000 indirect jobs.

As well as these 273,000 jobs, Mr Cowen said another 30,000 construction jobs would be created from the building of infrastructure such as schools and public transport. He also said the Government would get better value for money in the current economic climate.

Shares in AIB are up 5% in opening trade this morning in Dublin, while Bank of Ireland shares have gained over 3% as investors give their first response to Friday's results of stress tests on the European banking sector.

Overall, the Dublin market is up over 0.5%, while other European markets are also higher. The London FTSE has gained 0.3% while the Frankfurt and Paris markets opened over 0.5% stronger.

Some of the major UK banks are higher with Lloyds Banking group and Barclays up about 2.5%.

Both big Irish banks passed the tests designed to test their ability to withstand future economic shocks. The health of their capital reserves was shown by the tests to be below average.

But the Central Bank opted to apply tougher standards to the Irish banks regarding potential property losses and that appears to have cheered the markets.

Seven German, Greek and Spanish banks failed the tests but market sceptics said that more should have failed and that investors would not be convinced by Friday's results.

Iarnród Éireann will today lodge its application to build Dublin’s Underground DART designed to link-up the city’s transportation system.

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has consistently said that the Underground DART and Metro North will both go ahead despite a combined cost of around €5bn.

The application to An Bord Pleanála for the Underground DART comes as the board prepares to give its decision, expected by the end of next month, on Metro North, which will run from the city centre to Swords.

The Underground DART, or Interconnector, has been described as the most important part of Transport 21. Running from the Docklands to Heuston Station and Inchicore it will allow rail passengers from Cork to connect to Belfast.

It will open up two DART lines, one running from Balbriggan to Kildare the other from Maynooth to Bray intersecting at Pearse Street Station. The Underground DART will also link with Metro North at St Stephen’s Green, with the Inter-city lines at Heuston and with the LUAS.

Like the Metro North it will be a public-private partnership and the Government will not have to pay for its construction until it is completed as planned in 2018.

Dublin Chamber of Commerce has called on the Minister for Transport to publicly commit financially to the project’s completion.