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TÁNAISTE EAMON GILMORE has stated it is his expectation that negotiations between the Irish government and the European Central Bank, on possible methods to restructure Ireland’s promissory note debts, will be concluded before the next repayment is due.
The €30.6 billion note – which, when including interest, will cost about €48 billion over its lifetime – is currently due to be repaid in instalments of €3.06 billion at the end of every March, with the next repayment due ten weeks from today.
Last year’s repayment was made by issuing a long-term government bond – something which Gilmore this afternoon said would probably not be pursued this year, as the government made clear its attempt to secure a more long-term arrangement.
“We are committed to getting a comprehensive resolution of it,” Gilmore told RTÉ’s This Week. “I hope and expected that we will have [negotiations] concluded by the 31st of March.
We want to get an overall comprehensive resolution on the promissory note problem. We want to do that in a comprehensive way so that as a country, we know where we stand […] and those who are contemplating lending to us [...] know where we stand on this issue also.
The Tánaiste added: “It is something that is very much a priority for the government, and very much an immediate priority.”
Gilmore said Ireland had secured political agreement on its hopes for a deal from the leaders of other countries, and said he expected this to be underlined in upcoming events at EU level and at a summit of European and Latin American countries.
“I expect again that that political support will be confirmed and that we will be able to conclude our negotiations with the ECB before the 31st of March,” he said.
Gilmore would not be drawn, however, on whether any possible deal would involve lowering Ireland’s overall bill, or simply whether the payments would be extended over a longer period to reduce the taxpayer’s annual liability.
The Tánaiste’s comments came after Enda Kenny said he foresaw the deal as being restructured “from a serious overdraft to a long-term, low-interest mortgage”.
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well , i hate to say it but how big would our collective blinkers be if it wasn’t for anon?
I love how easily people seem to blindly accept these faceless “organisations” as the saviours of “free speech”
How exactly does anonymous brand of censorship differ to SOPA censorship.
Ever Wonder who is really behind Anon & Wikileaks ?
Trust no one
an apt name
Don’t talk about what you don’t know.
In response to an “apparent” cyber attack on interpol they arrested 25 people they suspected… …of using computers? of having an IT degree? of saying something out of line on the journal.ie forums? Its all so paper thin it could be a plot line from CSI! And yet interpols exec direc thinks it was a successful crack down on cyber crime. What a nice little work of fiction we are being force fed.
“i fought the law and the law won!” Bobby Fuller
nothing but respect for anonymous, at the very least they have an excellent sense of humour. they will never be stopped
I thought these guys all used IP address blockers, etc. How good are they if they get caught so easily?
Who said it was easy? They are known to use zombie machines etc but the folks chasing them can be just as good, and obviously are.
Or how good are they that the managed to hack INTERPOL.
Comitting crime is easy. Evading capture is the hard part.
I’m not an IT head, but from all I’ve read hacking is as easy as picking a car lock…something I also have no skill or training in.
@Jason I doubt they hacked anyone, I’m assuming it was another DDoS attack like all the others.
These ‘cyber-attackers’ are just fools running LOIC pointed at an IP address. Hardly hackers.
Script Kids? Yeah, they make up most of Anonymous.
Which is a shame really, considering that they don’t quite understand what they are getting themselves into.
LulzSec & Anon and many other groups have dozens of guides on how to ghost yourself online. If the kids don’t want to read, who cares? I certainly don’t.
Ghosting isn’t entirely foolproof, though. Even though there are networking programs that completely exclude your mahcine from the WWW.
have your say