The CEO of the National Treasury Management Agency has told the Public Accounts Committee that while Ireland has benefited from extraordinary low interest rates, it remains an indebted country.
Conor O'Kelly said 2015 was a significant year as it was the first year that Ireland benefited from a very low interest rate environment.
The interest bill for the national debt fell just below €7bn last year, compared to €7.5bn the previous year - the first year-on-year decline since 2008.
Mr O'Kelly said Ireland has issued its first-ever 30-year bonds in 2015 and a small amount of 100-year bonds.
He said it was interesting to note that in 2013 Ireland had difficulty borrowing for 100 days, now we borrow for 100 years.
"That says a lot about the extraordinary interest rate environment as much as it does about Ireland as a credit".
But he said our debt, at over €200bn, remains very high and Ireland is vulnerable to shocks.
Mr O'Kelly said the upgrading by Moodys to Category A was signficant in that some investors are more conservative and could only lend to countries with that category.
In its submission to the committee, the NTMA noted that during 2015 Ireland's public debt dynamics continued to improve, reflecting a combination of strong economic growth and further improvements in the public finances.
"While there has been considerable discussion of Ireland's GDP data in recent days, there is a very clear trend that Ireland's debt as a percentage of GDP is continuing to fall."
The NTMA said it completed the early repayment of just over €18bn of Ireland's International Monetary Fund loan facility using cheaper market funding, generating savings of €1.5bn over the original lifetime of the loan.
Despite the impact of multi-nationals activities, the NTMA notes that growth was strong in the first half of 2016 and that Government deficit was also better than profiled in Budget 2016.
However, they also cautioned against underestimating the potential impact of Brexit on Ireland - "The range of published estimates indicates that if UK GDP drops by 1%, Ireland's GDP may fall by 0.3% to 0.8%".
The NTMA also noted that Ireland has €48bn of maturing debt to refinance in the markets between 2018 and 2020.
The committee was also told that 60 employees at the NTMA received bonuses of just under €500,000.
Mr O'Kelly said the 60 employees, or 15% of the workforce, received performance related pay of an average of €8,000 each.
Responding to Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, Mr O'Kelly said the financial services sector was well remunerated and there were competitive pressures there.
He said the remaining 85% of staff did not receive bonuses.
