Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said Ireland's re-entry to the markets would be greatly assisted by a re-engineering of our financial arrangements and particularly our debt arrangement that arose from the bank bailout.
Mr Gilmore said the Government is working on this on an ongoing basis and discussions are taking place with the Troika and other member states.
However, he said it is difficult to put a timescale on how long it will take to get a satisfactory outcome.
He also welcomed the fact that a government is in formation in Greece as it will contribute to stability in the Eurozone.
Mr Gilmore was speaking as he arrived for this morning’s cabinet meeting at Government buildings.
Yesterday it was reported that the Troika – which is made up of the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - was considering the effect of making changes to the terms of Ireland’s bailout in an attempt to help the country return to the markets.
Sources told RTÉ News it could extend the loans owed to the European Union from 15 years to 30 years.
Such a change would amount to Ireland's official creditors taking some pain and would require political agreement.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said he would be attending the eurogroup and the ecofin meetings on Thursday and Friday and he would see then if there were any indications of new proposals being brought forward.
He said no new plans had been signalled to the Government.
"But everywhere people gather where people have an interest in the eurozone there are a variety of solutions being discussed and I presume there was some level of discussion at some level about this," he said.
He added he presumed any extension of the term of loans would not be for new loans but for existing ones too.
"There five or six or seven or eight big ideas around at the moment. So far I have no indication that any of them is advancing or is the preferred option."
He added technical work has been done on the longer term issue of the promissory note but it was not complete yet.
Mr Noonan said the crisis is not about one country but a crisis of the eurozone and he hoped the issue would be discussed at the G20 meeting in Mexico.
He was commenting after it emerged Spain had to pay a record rate to borrow money on the bond markets today.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, UCD economist Colm McCarthy said that any solution to the European banking problem must include a retrospective deal for Ireland.
Mr McCarthy said that as the EU is dealing with the Spanish bank debt crisis, now was the time that the Irish Government should insist that the terms of Ireland's bailout deal be changed.
"I think the immediate question is how does Spain manage to continue its access to the bond market, and it looks grim this week,” he said.
“I think it's make up your mind time, something's going to have to be done.
"If something is done to break the link between the Spanish sovereign and the Spanish banks, then the Irish Government must insist that that deal is made available retrospectively to this country."
