What the papers say: Friday's front pages

Eva Osborne

Here are the stories making headlines this Friday.

Permanent TSB’s move to put itself up for sale has stoked concerns that a new owner will cut branches and jobs in the Republic’s least cost-efficient bank, The Irish Times reports.

The 57 per cent State-owned bank surprised the stock market on Thursday morning by announcing it had put itself up for sale – sending its market value up 23.4 per cent in Dublin to €1.58 billion.

The front page of the Irish Examiner features a piece on a report claiming Russian commanders are executing soldiers or deliberately sending them to their deaths if they refuse to fight in Ukraine.

The Echo leads with the Government approving BusConnects Cork, which will increase bus services in the city by more than 50 per cent.

However, there are concerns around delays in the planning process and the publication of final routes.

A married male teacher who developed a sexual obssession with his teenage student bombarded the boy with 250,000 Snapchat messages over a seven month period, the Irish Independent reports.

The Irish Daily Mirror leads with Dublin firefighter Terence Crosbie being sentenced to at least seven years in prison after he was found guilty of a raping a woman in the US.

The Irish Daily Star also leads with Crosbie's sentencing, revealing that the firefighter asked the judge to be lenient for the sake of his wife and kids.

Two hospitals misused taxpayers' money to pay doctors from a fund designed to cut waiting lists in 'out-of-hours' clinics, the Irish Daily Mail reports.

The Herald leads with a woman who faked her own death in a "deliberate scheme" to avoid a Circuit Criminal Court trial being jailed for three years.