“Following my instruction last week, the NTMA has completed the third and final early repayment of Ireland’s IMF loan facility with a payment of SDR* 5.2 billion. This is the end of the process which began last September when I negotiated the replacement of over €18 billion in IMF loans with cheaper market funding with my fellow EU Finance Ministers, the EU Institutions and our bilateral loan providers.

The €1.6 billion in proceeds from the sale of the Bank of Ireland preference shares and the €400 million due from the repayment of the Permanent TSB contingent capital instrument were used to part-finance this repayment.

With this repayment 81 percent of Ireland’s original €22.5 billion IMF loan has been repaid early and this will deliver savings of over €1.5 billion over the lifetime of the loan. Ireland now has the fastest growing economy in the EU and over 90,000 jobs have been created since unemployment peaked in 2012. The early repayment of IMF loans has only been possible due to the positive market reaction to Ireland’s economic recovery and the Government’s strategy to repair the economy”.

Ends

20 March 2015

*IMF loans are denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international reserve asset created by the IMF. Its value is based on a basket of four key international currencies – the euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling and U.S. dollar.