Noonan brushes off Fiscal Council warning

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has brushed aside warnings from the Fiscal Advisory Council that he should have applied for a precautionary credit line from the EU’s fund, the ESM.

He sounded a note of caution, however, saying that the country and the eurozone was going through a particularly benign period at the moment.

Claims that his decision would militate against the ECB buying the Government’s bonds through the outright monetary transactions programme were wrong, he said. The ECB agreed, saying it was “hard to see it being used for just one country”.