The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) has hired a group of banks and brokerages to sell about €4 billion of bonds, which would mark its largest fundraising deal since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The so-called syndicated bond sale of bonds is expected to take place on Wednesday, according to market sources.
Barclays, Bank of America Securities, Dublin-based Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland and Goodbody Stockbrokers, as well as JP Morgan and NatWest, will manage the sale, the NTMA said in a statement. It added that the new bonds will mature in 10 years’ time.
Sources said the deal is expected to raise about €4 billion.
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A spokesman for the NTMA declined to comment on the size of the deal or when it would take place, other than to say it would be “in the near future, subject to market conditions”.
The NTMA plans to issue between €10 billion and €14 billion in long-term debt, the agency said in a statement early last month. That compares to a range of €6 billion to €10 billion originally planned for 2025. The debt office ultimately raised about €8.25 billion.
The higher target for this year reflects the fact that €15 billion in debt maturities must be refinanced in 2026.
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“Ireland has historically come to the market very early in January. However, the fact that the NTMA has now opted for around the middle of the month in recent years probably reflects its status now as a strong issuer within Europe – and doesn’t feel the need to be among the first of the year,” said Ryan McGrath, head of fixed income distribution at Davy.
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Portugal and Belgium were among the initial euro zone sovereigns to hit the bond markets last week, with Greece raising €4 billion on Tuesday.
France, whose market bond rates were volatile in 2025 amid political and budgetary turmoil and ratings downgrades from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch and DBRS Morningstar, will also be in the market on Wednesday with Ireland.
The planned €4 billion NTMA deal is the largest in five years. Five years ago, the then-government was providing households and businesses with billions of euro of supports at the height of the pandemic.
This year’s bond sales will come against a backdrop of growing concerns over the sustainability of the State’s tax receipts, with corporation tax in particular under the spotlight, given that a handful of big multinationals account for such a huge proportion of that tax.
European sovereigns are on track to issue almost €1.4 trillion of bonds this year, driven by governments seeking to plug large fiscal deficits – particularly in Germany and France, according to Amundi, the largest asset manager in the EU.
Demand for bonds from the European Central Bank (ECB) – which was by far the biggest buyer of euro-zone government bonds over the past decade – will shrink further in 2026 as it continues a policy of not reinvesting proceeds from maturing bonds.
It began this process, known as quantitative tightening (QT), in March 2023, following an initial slowdown of asset purchases in mid-2022.
