Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan has said "it now seems likely" that efforts to restructure the payment of promissory notes to the former Anglo Irish Bank will be successful.
He was speaking to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure & Reform.
Professor Honohan said the Central Bank had been working "vigorously" on the issue with the ECB and other parties ahead of a €3.1 billion payment due at the end of this month.
Governor Honohan said the March 31 payment would be funded with the payment of a long-term bond at current market rates. He agreed that interest rate would be in the region of 6.8%, but said the economic value was in reality much lower because the bond would be passing between State-owned institutions.
"There would be no net cash payment as the money would circle back to the exchequer," he said. "The net cost would be quite low in terms of the alternatives."
Professor Honohan added that the Central Bank had also been studying, with the troika and the Irish authorities, ways of improving the arrangements for providing funding to IBRC. He said this was a large ambition, and a full solution had not yet been finalised.
He also said he was constrained in what he could say as there were matters he could not address in public at the session.
