Ireland expects to return fully to bond markets late next year but needs a deal on easing its bank debt to make sure it can successfully exit its international bailout, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said.
Speaking days before the country takes over the EU presidency, Kenny told Reuters he was confident an easing of repayment terms on the promissory notes, or IOUs, that Dublin pumped mainly into the failed Anglo Irish Bank would be agreed by a March deadline.
He also called on European leaders to stick to a separate promise to look at improving Ireland's costly bank rescue. "We would hope to be the first country to actually exit (a bailout) in 2013 but that level of support that has been committed to Ireland is very necessary to be carried through", Kenny said in an interview late on Wednesday. "This assistance and this support is very necessary for Ireland to exit the programme", he said, adding that Dublin would not need to seek a second bailout.
Ireland takes over the rotating EU presidency in January for a six-month period in which it hopes to strike the bank debt deal with the European Central Bank and pave the way to exit its EU/IMF rescue programme on schedule at the end of 2013. Kenny said he envisaged Ireland making a sustained return to debt markets in the second half of 2013, adding that a deal on the €31 billion of promissory notes would help this greatly. "It would be much easier to do that if we have a conclusion to the matter of the promissory notes and ECB negotiations which would obviously make it easier for us to have a full return to the markets... probably in the second half of the year."
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Video: Ireland to reach Anglo Irish deal with ECB by March: Kenny
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