Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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264. To ask the Minister for Finance the countries and companies that own Irish public debt; the amounts of debt owned by these companies and countries; and the repayment dates for each element of this debt. [11701/22]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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At year-end 2021 Gross National Debt stood at €237.2bn. The table below provides a breakdown of that figure into the various debt components.

Notes:

Rounding can affect totals. 

Figures are unaudited and take account of the effect of currency hedging transactions.

Over €43bn or close to one-fifth of Gross National Debt is in the form of EU loans from the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM), European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the SURE Programme. The EFSM and EFSF loans formed part of the EU-IMF Programme 2010-2013. The SURE Programme loan was drawn down last year to assist in dealing with the employment impact of the pandemic.

The other Medium/Long-Term (MLT) debt category in the table above includes loans from the European Investment Bank and Council of Europe Development Bank. 

A further €19.6bn or 8% of the Gross National Debt is in the form of State Savings products such as Savings Certificates, Savings Bonds, National Solidarity Bonds and Prize Bonds. The majority of this debt is held by Irish citizens.

Non-marketable short-term paper debt, which comprises Exchequer Notes and Central Treasury Notes, is mostly held by Irish domestic public sector entities.

Of course, most of the public debt is in the forms of Irish Government bonds, which accounted for 65% of Gross National Debt at year-end 2021. While the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) is the registrar for Irish Government bonds, the way they are settled and registered does not allow for the identification of individual holders.

However, the CBI publishes some information on holders of Irish Government bonds, disaggregated between resident and non-resident holders. At year-end 2021 resident holders accounted for just over 50% of bonds outstanding.

Within the resident category, Credit Institutions and the Central Bank are by far the largest holders. This primarily reflects the purchase of bonds under the Quantitative Easing (QE) Programmes introduced by the European Central Bank (ECB) – the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) and more recently the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP)  – as well as the Floating Rate Bonds acquired by the CBI on the liquidation of IBRC in 2013. Eurosystem book value holdings of Irish government bonds under ‘Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme’ (PEPP) and ‘Public Sector Purchase Programme’ (PSPP) as of the end of January 2022 were €67.039bn.

The maturity profile of the €202.7bn MLT debt portfolio, as at year-end 2021, is outlined in the table below.

Notes:

Rounding can affect totals.

Figures are unaudited.

*Includes NTMA Repo activity.

**EFSF loans reflect the maturity extensions agreed in June 2013.

***EFSM loans are also subject to extension, such that their original aggregated weighted average maturity will be a maximum of 19.5 years. The table reflects both original and revised maturity dates of individual EFSM loans.