Bank of Ireland will be able to write off €344m of future profits against tax because it received a credit for that amount following its pre-tax loss of €1.8bn for the nine months to the end of December 2009.

The accounts also show that the bank lost €74m following an unfavourable court ruling in connection with a European property investment and took a "further impairment of €15m on the value of some investment properties arising from continuing low levels of transactions in the commercial property market". The previous year it had recorded a €63m impairment in relation to a UK property trust.

The impairment charge on the bank's SME and corporate portfolio was €270m for the last three quarters of 2009 "which reflects the challenging conditions for certain mid-tier Irish corporate customers and some specific debt-restructuring activity in the leveraged acquisition finance business". A spokeswoman for the bank said that many of the problems were coming from within those sectors reliant on consumer spending.

The bank's life business turned in an underlying profit before tax of €69m; however, it took an impairment charge of €3m relating to the revaluation of Bank of Ireland Life-owned properties.

However, if the accounts are presented on an embedded value basis, a method "widely used in the life assurance industry", then operating profit of €20m for the last nine months of 2009 actually slumped from €52m in the same period in 2008.

The bank recorded a net actuarial loss on its defined pension fund of €74m in the last three quarters of 2009. The bank has moved to address its pension deficit by asking employees to
contribute more.