The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) raised €1.5 billion in a bond auction today amid strong demand for the issue.
The auction was the fourth in a series of monthly auctions of Government bonds to fund the borrowing requirement for the year.
It offered two bonds - the 4.6 per cent Treasury Bond maturing in April 2016 and a 5 per cent Treasury Bond due to mature in October 2020.
The total bids received amounted to almost €4.5 billion, three times the maximum amount on offer.
Analysts said it was not surprise that there was strong appetite for the bond.
"With all the concerns about Greece's debt issues, Ireland continues to receive praise from its euro zone partners for the decisive steps taken to address its budgetary problems. This perception is not just shared by politicians, but by the market at large. As a result, Irish government paper is now traded as a 'must have' within the 'peripheral' euroland market," said Bloxham's chief economist Alan McQuaid.
The 2016 bond was sold at an average yield of 3.6 per cent; the 2020 bond was sold at an average yield of 4.7 per cent.
"Even though the yield at this month's auction was somewhat higher than in March, we still think this was a very solid result given what is going on in Greece and the adverse knock-on effects it is having on the other euro zone 'peripherals'," said Mr McQuaid.
Last month, the NTMA reached just over half its 2010 bond sale target of €20 billion, and today's auction brings the total funds raised to €11.7 billion, 59 per cent of the target.
This is in contrast to Greece, which needs to refinance some €20 billion of debt scheduled to mature by May.
"As we have said on numerous occasions recently, one has to admire the NTMA's opportunism in exploiting the current goodwill towards Ireland within the financial markets that appears evident following the fiscal austerity measures announced in the December Budget. Indeed, the indications are that the NTMA will try to raise as much as possible in 2010 and pre-fund some of next year's expected funding requirement, which at this stage looks like being about €22 billion," Mr McQuaid said.
