State to auction €750m worth of Irish treasury bills

The State is to auction €750 million worth of Irish treasury bills on Thursday, its debt agency has announced.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) said the bills will mature on December 14th, 2020.

Treasury bills are used to provide governments with short-term liquidity as they rely on long-term bond markets to fund budget shortfalls and debt refinancings.

The NTMA plans to raise a total of between €20 billion and €24 billion of long-term funding this year, mainly to help the Government deal with the health and economic costs of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Majority of employees don’t want to return to pre-Covid working patterns

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Government should set a benchmark for any permanent increases in spending

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NTMA raises €1.5bn mainly at negative rates

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Inflation at near five-year low as consumer activity remains muted

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Frank O’Connor, director of funding and debt management at the NTMA, told the special Oireachtas committee on Covid-19 in recent weeks that the State is in a “strong position” to deal with a spike in borrowing requirements, a decade after it was forced into an international bailout.