Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 74: To ask the Minister for Finance when the reduction in the interest rate being charged to Ireland from funds paid out of the EFSF and EFSM took effect; if he will provide a schedule of the current interest rates being charged to Ireland on all sources of funding under the EU IMF Programme of Assistance, including bilateral loans. [17468/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Euro Area Heads of State or Government (HoSG) agreed on 21 July 2011 to reduce the cost of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to lending rates equivalent to those of the Balance of Payments facility close to, without going below, the EFSF funding cost.

In addition, further amendments to the EFSF framework have removed the interest rate margin on EFSF funds and were incorporated into a new legal agreement on the 27th of October in which the interest rate margin is now defined as zero. This reduction applies from the date of the HoSG decision i.e 21 July 2011. The agreement incorporates a guarantee commitment fee of 0.1% per annum and a service fee to cover the cost of operations of the EFSF. It should be noted that the EFSF's cost of funds depends on the interest rate it pays for its market issuance when raising funds for programme countries.

In October 2011, the EU Council of Ministers approved an EU Commission proposal to eliminate the margin of 2.925% on the EFSM facility. This change was incorporated into an amendment to the existing legal agreement on 28th October 2011 and the margin is now defined as zero. This now applies to EFSM borrowings back to the date upon which they were issued. For both the EFSF and the EFSM as for the programme loans, the actual cost of funding depends on the prevailing market rates at the time of each drawdown. The structure of the interest rates on the UK bilateral loan will change when it is incorporated into the loan agreement and will be fully retrospective.

In relation to the schedule of the current interest rate being charged to Ireland on all forms of funding under the EU/IMF Programme of financial support, the following table supplied by the NTMA, provides the information for all amounts outstanding as at 28 March 2012.