Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said he is confident European authorities would find resolution to the Greek debt crisis that isn't classed as a default.
"A satisfactory resolution will be brought about, which will not be a credit event," Mr Noonan said in an interview with CNBC television in New York today. Mr Noonan is on a four-day trip to the US to promote investment in Ireland.
"But Ireland will be watching very closely."
A meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels today is one of a series on a new Greek bailout, with the region's leaders due to hold a summit starting on June 23rd.
Mr Noonan said there are a "number of options on the table" for Greece.
The Government does not want a solution for Greece to amount to a "credit event" that could have a "contagion effect for Ireland," Mr Noonan said.
"We're totally different to Greece. We have our bank restructuring in place, we have our fiscal programs in place." During the interview Mr Noonan repeated that the States 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate was not up for negotiation.
"What we’re being asked to do is change [the corporate tax rate] for the sake of the lower interest rate" payment, Mr Noonan said.
"We’d rather pay the higher interest rate, and we continue to pay it if the quid pro quo is any change in the tax rate. It is not negotiable."
New aid for Greece may total €80 billion from European governments and the International Monetary Fund, Belgian finance minister Didier Reynders said today.
Private investors may contribute €25 billion to the second emergency funding package for Greece in little more than a year, Mr Reynders said in Brussels where euro area finance ministers met to discuss the debt crisis. He said any participation by private investors should be voluntary.
During his US visit Mr Noonan will attend a series of meetings with investors set up by the National Treasury Management Agency and the Central Bank in a bid to encourage fundraising.
"I want to tell [Wall Street] the strengths of the [Irish] economy and take their advice, because sometimes in Europe you can’t see the woods for the trees. At least when you’re in New York and look back you see the woods," he said today.
The Minister will have at least 15 engagements on the trip, however no formal public engagements are scheduled, a Department of Finance spokesman said.
Mr Noonan is expected to meet investors who may be interested in acquiring the $10 billion US loan book of nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank. The spokesman said the meetings were “commercially sensitive”.
