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THE EUROPEAN UNION’S finance ministers have confirmed a deal which will give Ireland several years more to repay the European loans from its EU-IMF bailout.
The finance ministers have signed off on plans which will extend the term of the average European loan from 12.5 years to 19.5 years.
The arrangement also applies to Portugal, which was the third Eurozone country – after Ireland and Greece – to enter an EU-IMF programme.
Today’s decision applies to loans from the EFSM, which is funded by all 27 EU member states, and from which Ireland has borrowed €21.7 billion.
Those loans were due to be repaid on dates between 2015 and 2042 – but the duration of each loan will now be extended by seven years.
The decision – which formally ratifies an agreement earlier this year – will mean Ireland does not have to be ready to repay any EFSM loans until December 2022.
This, in turn, means Ireland will have far more time to build up enough cash to repay those loans – and should ease Ireland’s transition back into the independent money markets and out of the EU-IMF bailout.
The decision will also mean that the overall cost of Ireland’s bailout will increase slightly, as Ireland pays an annual interest rate on the loans drawn down from the EFSM.
Because those interest rates are fixed, however, it is expected that inflation would mean any increase in the total cost of the bailout would be relatively small.
Ministers said a parallel decision would be made by the board of governors of the other bailout vehicle, the EFSF, regarding the extension of its own loans to Ireland.
Ireland has currently drawn down €13.5 billion in loans from the EFSF, with an average maturity of 11.9 years. Another €1.6 billion in loans from the EFSF were approved earlier this week.
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1 in 2 people are either male or female
Surely that should be everyone is either male or female.
I’m 21 days smoke free :-)
Great keep it up its hard for you but well worth the effort !
Well done Aisling :)
Either make it illegal, or shut up about it. Useless story.
bollocks to that – how many hours are lost each year “outside puffing”. How many sick days a year in HSE?
They can’t afford to smoke anymore simple as…..
I’d be afraid to know the statistic of smokers in germany, nearly everybody smokes, young and old.
Yeah but there’s massive differences in Germany,
- Smoking adverts exist on billboards and bus stops
- Shops have adverts up in windows and behind the counter
- Cigs are openly for sale, one example is in Aldi where instead of sweets at the checklike like you have in Ireland they have cigs…hundreds of the things!
- Many streets have cig vending machines that can be used anytime.
Goes to show that Ireland has done something right,
As much as i dont like smoking its not illegal for god sake so i dont understand the point of the article…Who gives a sh*t!!
I’m all for the non-smoking campuses but the enforcement just isn’t there, if anyone has been to CUH you can hear that voice announcing that “Cork University Hospital is a smoke-free campus, the smoke from your cigarette is directly effecting patients in the breast cancer and cardiac unit overhead etc etc” but patients, staff and visitors still smoke there regardless, plenty porters bring the patients out for a smoke no bother!
Many (not ALL) smokers have no regard for anyone else, especially in places where people have health issues.
Anyone with asthma will tell you the problems that people smoking around them can cause, the last thing such a person needs is to walk through a cloud of smoke as they leave a hospital!\
Very true, Martin. I have to run the gauntlet of smoke every 4 weeks when attending the respiratory clinic. It’s ridiculous, but I do think it’s slowly improving.
The gauntlet of smoke?
Oh the humanity!!!
First world problems strike again.
I quite enjoyed mixing that particular metaphor, Alan ;)
You might say it’s a first-world problem, and possibly it is; if I had been born in the developing world I’d be dead long before now. Remember, though, this is a hospital. People shouldn’t have to risk their own health to any degree just to pass through the doors.
What a pile of drivel?
This is about spending more money to help HSE smokers quit. I know of one person who availed of this scheme… a complete waste of money as she still puffs 20-30 per day. If HSE staff want to quit let them do so with their own cash and not the tax payer.
I say they should fire all HSE staff that cannot keep their grubby yellow fingered mitts off of the cancer sticks for the 8 hours a day they are required to be at work.
Get a grip of yourself….smoking is a personal choice. Sack the nurses, then who would be there to look after the whingers like you? Now im going to make a lovely cup of tea & have a lovely cigarette to go with it.
No doubt you won’t be worrying about the medical services, hospital beds and hospital budgets that won’t be available for your children and relatives now or in the future when they need them, because the selfish, coffin nail addicted, people like yourself are using them all up – coughing up your lungs and polluting the place while you die slowly at huge expense to the taxpayer. That won’t worry you one little bit will it ?
Nope!! It sure won’t u pathetic do gooding whinge
Well when youre out dogooding and moralling bullshitting out of you,make sure and berate the fatties in supermacs with their clogged arteries,and the alcoholics taking up valuable breathing space,and the junkies,they all need hospital beds too,at least smokers will agree with you that its a disgusting addiction,but the fatties all go around miffed about why theyre fat,as if it was a fcuking mystery!
Well said Barry!!
U sound like you could do with a smoke, would u ever light up!!! Sorry I meant lighten up……
You sound like you could be paid for by the tobacco – profits before people – industry….
The tobacco industry could pay me all day long if they wanted, I’d be delighted!!!
U sound like you could do with a smoke, would u ever light up!!! Sorry I meant lighten up……
So?
have your say