Noonan ‘won’t take much notice’ of debt statement

Finance Minister Michael Noonan said he “won’t take a lot of notice” of a statement by his German, Dutch, and Finnish counterparts earlier this week which cast doubt over plans to ease bank debt.

Their statement — that only debt incurred in the future should be eligible for cheap loans from the ESM, Europe’s permanent rescue fund — was dismissed by Mr Noonan as the “bits and bobs” involved in negotiations at EU level.

He made the comments when he went off-script during a speech to the Construction Industry Federation at its annual conference in Dublin’s Aviva stadium.

Earlier, Mr Noonan told reporters he would like to see a deal on reducing the bank debt burden before December’s budget.

“I would be hoping for October or November,” he said. “It certainly would suit my forward planning if we had a fairly definite indication of what the result might be before the budget.”

He responded with an emphatic “no” when asked if he had scaled back on hopes for a large bank deal as a result of a statement from the three finance ministers in Helsinki.

“Everything is significant and when a group of triple A countries say something you take it into account,” said Mr Noonan.

But he told reporters the statement “wasn’t particularly about bank recapitalisation” but was “part of the wider positioning for negotiations” on the EU banking union where there are “significant differences”.

In his speech to CIF members later, he was less diplomatic, saying dealing with the residual bank debt was a “big issue”.

While Ireland has the support of most countries, he said, “you will always see bits and bobs — the three ministers in Helsinki the other day making the announcement — but I won’t take a lot of notice of that at the moment”.

He said a banking union is one of the big projects facing the EU and there are “differences of opinion” on how it should work.

“So you’ll hear a lot of comments from Europe over the next couple of months where different countries are taking up different positions on banking union,” he said.

“And they are putting chips on the table to strengthen their negotiating position on the banking union.

“So it’s going to be a rolling negotiation but no one particular statement will be of great consequence in that context,” said Mr Noonan.