The chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) has said the agency may begin a "phased re-engagement" with the international debt markets late next year.
John Corrigan was speaking to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure & Reform. He also said the recent interest rate cut on Ireland's bail-out programme could reduce the country's debt by €8.5 billion.
Mr Corrigan said that while the NTMA has maintained "a low-level presence in the very short-term debt markets throughout recent months".
He said the NTMA intended to expand this by slowly extending the maturity of bonds raised, before beginning efforts to raise long-term debt. But Mr Corrigan warned that the timing of this would depend on many national and international factors, and implementation of the EU/IMF programme.
He said that problems in Greece could affect our ability to return to the long-term debt markets. ''There are certain exogenous factors such as what happens in Greece which could throw us all off course," Mr Corrigan said.
Mr Corrigan also told the Committee that since April, the NTMA had met more than 200 investment institutions in North America, Europe, Asia and in Dublin, adding that the feedback from these meetings was positive.
On the banks, he said the extra amount of money provided by the State following the Central Bank's stress tests was expected to be around €16.5 billion.
