ULSTER BANK’S losses rose again in the third quarter, increasing to £219 million (€250 million) for the three-month period as more loans in its core operations soured.

The results “continue to be overshadowed by the challenging economic climate in Ireland, with impairments remaining elevated”, the bank said. It took a third-quarter charge of £327 million to cover bad loans in its core division which houses £35 billion of loans split from £15 billion of mostly property, land and development loans in the non-core division.

This brought the impairment charge for the first nine months to £1 billion, compared with £785 million for the same period last year.

There was a further £2.1 billion bad-debt charge in Ulster Bank’s non-core division for the first nine months, compared with £1.9 billion for the same period last year.

The £610 million third-quarter bad-loan charge across the core and non-core units means the bank has taken total provisions of £9.2 billion on the £56 billion of loans it held at the peak, since the crisis began. The “non-core” bad-debt charge fell two-thirds due to heavy second-quarter write-downs on development land values.

The third-quarter “core” bad debt charge was 22 per cent higher than the £269 million posted in the previous quarter.

The biggest increase was on the £21 billion mortgage book where losses rose to £126 million from £78 million between the two quarters due to falling house prices. There were 134 property repossessions in the first nine months “primarily due to voluntary surrender or abandonment of the property”.

The bank said there were “little growth” in the mortgage book.

Ulster Bank said on Thursday it had no plans to pass on this week’s European Central Bank interest rate cut to borrowers. Jim Brown, who became chief executive of Ulster Bank in April, said last month Royal Bank of Scotland had injected further cash into the bank to cover higher losses.

RBS, which is 83 per cent owned by the UK government, had provided €7 billion in capital to Ulster Bank by the end of last year.

The UK bank’s exposure to Ireland fell £3 billion to less than £50 billion over the first nine months. Stephen Hestor, chief executive of RBS, warned of job losses because of a “longer and bumpier” road to recovery. Mr Brown has refused to rule out further job losses at Ulster Bank.

RBS posted profits of £2 billion in the third quarter, compared with a loss of £678 million in the previous quarter.