Bid to return to short-term market

IRELAND is set to return to the short-term bond markets this year, ahead of a planned resumption of auctioning long-term debt sometime in 2013.

At the publication of its business review for 2011, yesterday, the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) — the body responsible for managing the national debt — said it is hoping to get back to the long-term bond markets “as early as possible” in 2013; and is aiming to use, as a springboard, a sooner return to the short-term markets — through the selling of treasury bills — before the end of 2012.

NTMA chief executive John Corrigan said the agency will “start the process of re-entry” around the middle of this year and hopes to raise billions rather than millions of euro from its sale of short-term Government debt.