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John Corrigan of the NTMA Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland
Markets

NTMA chief: It's looking good for 'sustainable' re-entry to markets

However, John Corrigan does warn that “wider uncertainties” in the eurozone could be risk factor to Ireland’s progress.

THE HEAD OF the National Treasury Management Agency has sounded a positive note on Ireland’s potential to make a “sustainable” re-entry to the markets.

John Corrigan, speaking at a Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants event in Dublin, said that the country had taken positive steps towards re-entry in the coming months. This re-entry would be on a phased basis, he said. Some of the steps already taken to achieve this include:

The next step, said Corrigan, would be to issue inflation-linked bonds.

He said:

The average interest rate of  just under 6 per cent on the recent sales of long-term bonds and amortising bonds is higher than we would expect to pay on an ongoing basis as we return to the market; but our primary objective was to tackle the “funding cliff” presented by some €12 billion of bonds maturing in January 2014. Reducing that to €2.4 billion has removed a major obstacle to full market re-entry and should, in tandem with continued progress on other fronts, help us achieve lower yields.

The chief executive did, however, warn that “wider euro uncertainties” remain a risk to Ireland’s move towards a full return to the markets. The announcement this morning that Germany’s Constitutional Court – its highest-level court – had approved the European Stability Mechanism treaty is a positive event in this area.

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