Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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167. To ask the Minister for Finance if, in relation to the €25 billion of floating rate notes and €3.46 billion of Government fixed coupon 2025 bonds acquired by the Central Bank of Ireland, if he will ask the ECB or Commission for a review of the economic efficacy that destruction of proceeds from the sale of said bonds would have in view of the fact that they form such a major portion of legacy bank debt, that this money is already in circulation, that such destruction would simply take this sum out of circulation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30832/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Under the original Promissory Note arrangement, the Government was scheduled to make annual payments of €3.1 billion thereby putting significant upward pressure on the amounts to be funded from the market. Following a long period of negotiation the notes were replaced in February 2013 with a portfolio of Irish Government bonds which consists of three tranches of €2 billion each maturing after 25, 28 and 30 years, three tranches of €3 billion each maturing after 32, 34 and 36 years and two tranches of €5 billion each maturing after 38 and 40 years.  The provision of these long-term non-amortising Government bonds to replace the amortising Promissory Notes has therefore had significant benefits from a market perspective as it ensures that there will be much less issuance of Irish Government bonds into the market over the next decade and beyond than would otherwise have been the case.

The market continues to react positively to the restructuring and we have recently seen further reduction of the 10 year bond yields to 2.3%, far lower than had been the case before the State entered the EU/IMF programme and thus enabling the State to substantially reduce their cost of borrowings.

The Promissory Note transaction has delivered real savings to the Irish State and I do not consider it necessary to request the ECB or Commission to conduct a review of the matter.