THE FINANCE MINISTER Michael Noonan has met with ECB president Jean Claude Trichet today, and has said that their discussions “went well”.

Noonan said that it was likely that Ireland would have to spend more than the €10 billion earmarked to save the banks, and that it may be necessary to access the €25 billion contingency fund.

It is expected that results of special stress test on Ireland’s banks due at the end of the month will reveal capital holes that go beyond the €10 billion that were foreseen for initial bank recapitalisations in the country’s €67.5 billion bailout deal, Noonan said.

“Affordability isn’t so much the issue as sustainability and as so long as it continues to be seen as part of sovereign debt rather than distinct bank debt there remains a problem,” he said.

He asked Trichet for more time to restructure the banking system.

Noonan also met with the prime minister of Luxembourg, who chairs the eurozone finance ministers meetings Jean-claude Juncker, and it would appear discussions may not have gone as well as planned. When asked about Noonan’s request, Junker dryly replied: ”I had a meeting with him”.

However, Noonan was firm on the issue of corporation tax – arguing that higher corporate taxes would hurt manufacturing and exports, making it even harder for Ireland to repay its massive debts.

“There’s no way we’re going to concede on the corporate tax rate as a quid pro quo for the interest rate and it’s unreasonable to expect us to do that,” Noonan said in Brussels, where he was attending a monthly meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

Additional reporting by AP