Michael Noonan told Oireachtas Committee that Ireland's growth and budget is on track

The Minister for Finance has told an Oireachtas Committee that the rate of growth and budget are on track.

Michael Noonan said the growth figure of 0.7% tallies with the ESRI's figure.

Speaking to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, he said he was reasonably confident that Ireland could get back to the markets on schedule.

Earlier, Mr Noonan said the current crisis in the eurozone is not about one country but a crisis of the whole block.

Mr Noonan said he hoped the issue would be discussed at the G20 meeting in Mexico.

He was commenting after it emerged that Spain had to pay a record rate to borrow money on the bond markets today.

The Minister 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 also told the Committee that the issue of a European Financial Transactions Tax would be discussed at this Friday's meeting.

He said there were divergent views on the issue and there will be no financial transaction tax supported by all 27 member states.

Mr Noonan said the Government would like to see what is being proposed before we comment on anything.

He said that it remained Government policy that Europe was funded through contributions from each sovereign state and not through a  Financial Transaction Tax.

Extending the term of Government loans

Mr Noonan also said, regarding the Memorandum of Understanding and lengthening the maturity dates of some of our loans, that he had no idea where this idea came from.

However, he said he assumed that there must have been a reason for RTÉ to run with the story.

Earlier, Mr Noonan said there had been no indication of such a move at official level.

"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 said.

He added technical work has been done on the longer term issue of the promissory note but it was not complete yet.

Noonan's view on write-downs unchanged

Mr Noonan said that he was one of the few Dáil deputies who was consistent on the issue of debt writedowns.

He said that he had been in favour of write downs on senior as well as subordinate bonds but that he did not get the go-ahead for this from ECB.

Minister Noonan said that in terms of banking - only the resolution issue was up for discussion at Friday's Ecofin meeting - but that he would not be surprised if the meeting touched upon the banking union issue.

Meanwhile, UCD economist Colm McCarthy has urged 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 for the Government to insist that the terms of Ireland's bailout deal be changed.