Honohan: Debt deal talks will be torturous

Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan says negotiations to secure a deal on Irish bank debt will often seem “like two steps forward and one step back”.

Mr Honohan was responding to a question about the communique issued by the ministers of finance from Holland, Germany and Finland on Tuesday night which appeared to rule out a restructuring of Irish bank debt.

“It is a very complex political environment with lots of different problems facing different countries. Each player is trying to redesign a system on the hoof as we see large-scale changes to the operating procedures at the ECB and numerous EU summits that try to make fundamental decisions. So it is probably not surprising that there are two steps forward and one step backwards,” he said,