The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) is to auction €500 million in three-month treasury bills on Thursday.

The sale will be the first auction of treasury bills in 2013 and will be followed by two further monthly auctions in the first quarter of the year. The auction will be a similar offering to the three-month treasury bills sold last November, which carried an average yield of 0.55 per cent.

The announcement follows last week's sale of €2.5 billion in Irish sovereign debt, as part of a syndicated 'tap' on Ireland's 2017 bond, which was issued at a yield of 3.3 per cent.

The NTMA has set a total funding target of €10 billion for 2013, as Ireland prepares its exit from the EU-International Monetary Fund bailout programme.