Noonan to explore access to cheap loans with troika
The country’s exit strategy will be top of the agenda for Mr Noonan when he meets the EU/IMF/ECB officials in Dublin for a 10-day visit — its 11th inspection of the programme.
Mr Noonan, in Brussels for a finance ministers’ meeting, said: “We will have no difficulty fulfilling the conditions laid down and now I would like to engage on the exit strategy for when we go back into the market in a continuous way”.
Ireland would be back to stay on the markets and he was interested in investigating what help the country could avail of, including low interest rate loans, he said.
He ruled out getting any relief from a retroactiverecapitalisation of the banks, into which Ireland poured around €32bn.
“This may happen in due course, but is not an active issue at the moment,” he said.
The EU has agreed to explore such cases on a case-by-case basis but not until early next year.
Mr Noonan has cooled on the idea possibly because the rescue fund, the ESM, would offer only current value for the state’s shares in Allied Irish Bank and Permanent TSB, which could be as little as €4bn.
However, the ESM can offer low interest rate credit lines to countries. Mr Noonan would hope that they would accept as a condition the fact that Ireland is bound to reduce its government deficit to under 3% by 2015.
The ECB has also said it could buy the bonds of a member country once it has emerged from a programme and had raised a couple of 10-year bond sales. However there would be conditions attached.
The banks, both in relation to mortgages and SMEs, will be one of the main issues for the troika’s visit, and a preview of the Government’s budget to be announced in October.
While it is expected that Ireland will officially exit the bailout programme, ongoing conditions and oversight of the country’s budget will be a permanent feature under the EU’s new regulations following the near collapse of the euro.
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