Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the Deputy's first question about the capital requirements directive and regulations, it is important that the heightened pace of the trilogue negotiations is maintained and agreement is reached on the outstanding issues before the Basel III deadline for implementation on 1 January 2013. In that context, Ireland welcomes the efforts to reach a compromise on the outstanding issues and we favour keeping the proposed text as close to the Council's compromise text as possible. The prudential capital assessment review assesses the capital requirements arising from expected base and potential stressed loan losses and other financial developments over the medium term and was published in March 2011. The covered institutions are well capitalised at levels of around 15% to 16%. These capital levels for tier one capital ratios are clearly well above the minimum of 10.5% required by the Central Bank. The recent European Banking Authority capital raising exercise did not require further injections into the Irish banks. CRD IV and CRR, therefore, hold our banks to a higher requirement than has been the case before now, and this will help secure the long-term future.

The servicing costs of all the debt from the Irish banking system do not arise in terms of the ECOFIN agenda, but I can provide that information to the Deputy. I do not want to speak from memory because I do not want to put out inexact figures.