Recouping full €32bn looks ‘unlikely’

The Government would not get the full value of the €32bn it put into the pillar banks from the EU’s rescue fund, the ESM, even if there is agreement on refunding legacy debt, Finance Minister Michael Noonan has said.

He expected that governments would have to continue to carry some of the debt from propping up their banks, but he did not know how this would work for the Irish banks.

The minister, who today chairs his first EU finance ministers’ meeting, suggested he was ready to sell about €7bn of contingent capital notes and preference shares associated with the other banks, for which he expected he would “get a higher value than anticipated”.