Getting us back on our own two feet

The NTMA’s successful bond swap this week will have done the country’s image no harm at a time when agency boss John Corrigan is helping Ireland claw its way back to a form of international market respectability, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

THIS was a week that the Taoiseach Enda Kenny may want to forget: a payment of €1.25 billion to those much despised Anglo Irish Bank bondholders followed by that supposed gaffe at Davos, yet it was also one which brought important news on the fundraising front.

The National Treasury Management Agency was able to announce that it had extended the maturity profile of just over €3.5bn in Irish debt falling due in Jan 2014 up until Feb 2015. This effectively eases the funding position for 2014, when Ireland supposedly will be in a position to stand on its own two feet at the end of the EU/IMF bailout programme.