Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 4 July 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 21 - Accounts of the National Treasury Management Agency
National Treasury Management Agency Financial Statements 2018

9:00 am

Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

One is the cash that we hold. We currently hold €20 billion but, because of the maturities coming up, we have significantly more cash than we normally would. I estimate that we would normally have approximately €10 billion in cash. We do not like to talk in these terms any more but in the old days people used to talk during the crisis about how much funding we had in terms such as a year's funding, 18 months' funding, or nine months' funding. These days our access to markets is not an issue; it is just a question of the price of that access. We do not anticipate Ireland having difficulty accessing the market, we just worry about the cost involved because that will change. The interest investors will charge changes depending on their assessment of our profile.