THE MINISTER FOR Finance, Michael Noonan, says he held “positive” talks on Ireland’s debt repayment during meetings in Europe.

He made the comment after he completed a series of meetings with the leaders of EU institutions to discuss the issue of Ireland’s debt sustainability.

“Today I held a series of very positive meetings with Klaus Regling Managing Director of the ESM, Jeroen Dijsselbloem the President of the Eurogroup and Mario Draghi the President of the ECB,” said Noonan.

He said that he outlined to them “the opportunity that now exists to improve Ireland’s debt sustainability by replacing portions of our IMF loans with less expensive market funding”.

We discussed how the process of early repayment would work and the advice received will prove invaluable as we progress this initiative. The various institutions recognise the merits of Ireland pursuing measures that reduce our debt service burden and further improve our debt sustainability.

Later this week, Noonan will discuss the issue further at the meeting of EU Finance Ministers in Milan.

“While progress has been made at the series of meetings I have been engaged in over the past number of days, agreement is still required from all Member States to enable us to pursue our early repayment plan,” he pointed out.

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